


The Sun at Noon

by elissastillstands



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Original Character(s), POV Gwen (Merlin), Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22326550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elissastillstands/pseuds/elissastillstands
Summary: “Do you think me too ambitious?” Morgana asks when they part.Gwen presses her lips to the corner of Morgana’s mouth. "I think you noble, my lady."(Gwen and Morgana in Camelot; the slow entwining of their lives, and the people they meet along the way. The weight of anger, of destiny, of silk and iron.)
Relationships: Guinevere/Morgan le Fay, Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 164





	The Sun at Noon

**Author's Note:**

> No, this is not Discovery fic. I really have no words. I have no justification. This is my first Merlin fic (a full eight years after the show ended), and it is entirely un-betaed. I absolutely loved this show in high school, but it's been a long time. I cannot tell you what happens in here, for the life of me. This was written with no beta and no supervision. All blame fully falls on my shoulders.
> 
> Lastly, this is a story first and foremost about Gwen. I cannot stress that enough.

Her father was the one who taught her how to guide the metal on the anvil, when her hands were still small and clumsy. He let her work the bellows to keep the fire hot, and smiled at her as she stood on her tip-toes to look at the glowing iron being shaped into something new, and he would often tell her, _Ammaline was far better at this than I._

Ammaline was better at many things, in the annals of her father’s memories—crafting hinges that would not squeak and plough-shares that would last many seasons, forging balanced knives and keen swords and the finest keys for a high lady’s jewel-chest. It was so that Gwen learned of her mother, through the fire that softened metal, and the things the metal became. Ammaline was tall in Gwen’s mind, but never clear. She sees her as puzzle-pieces, as chapters; as clever fingers on a casting mold, strong arms steering a hammer's strike. Her mother lives on in the things the smithy makes, and while Gwen sometimes wishes she remembers more of her—her perfume, her favorite food, her laughter—she never thinks any less of the memories given to her by her father and the iron.

Her father too now lives on as Ammaline does, in the things the smithy makes. It houses a different smith now, a man named Simon who nods at her whenever she stops by, urged on by the needs of castle denizens or by her own sentimentality, and she breathes in the smell of hot metal and knows that he is still there—in the jewelry that had been his specialty, the hauberks and swords, the horseshoes and hoof-nails.

But he is more than the smithy. He had also been the one who mended her dresses for her when she was young, who taught her how to mend. For her name-days, he added new fabric to the bottoms of her skirts so they would grow with her, brilliant panels of linen and wool sewn in fresh colors. Sometimes, if she was very lucky and the castles’ ladies had just cleared their wardrobes, her dresses would grow in strips of worn silk, lovely and strong. When she was older, she joined the Lady Morgana’s household, and the spinners and seamstresses of the castle taught her the work behind these glories of thread. She took to it quickly. Her fingers were used to weaving the intricacies of mail. Silks and velvets are a different sort of armor, for a different sort of war.

Morgana wears her dresses as armor, for all she claims to despise the fripperies of sewing and embroidery. Before she came to Camelot, she had been too young to learn how to properly supervise a household’s production of silk and wool. Gwen has since taken over those duties as head maid, tallying up the skeins of thread she and the other servants spin on days too rainy to spend out in the sun and helping the new girls set up their handlooms in the airy antechamber, passing the first of the warp thread through their heddles. She remembers being young. She remembers learning from her father how to stack charcoal, and how to thread a needle.

“This will be a beautiful dress, my lady,” Gwen says to Morgana now, smoothing her hands over the panel of silk she is weaving on her loom. The fabric is a lustrous green, the same hue as Morgana’s eyes when they are lit by the sun. Camelot is blessed in her bounty of silk—the fabric is worth more than its weight in gold, and it had taken Gwen months to keep her fingers from trembling when she first started working on such fineries. “We have some gold thread I can use to to finish the borders. It’ll be a marvel.”

Morgana comes over from where she is sitting by the window, poring over a small circle of embroidery. Her stitches are large and uneven, far from the work her household produces under Gwen’s careful supervision. “You are too good to me, Gwen,” she says, her eyes crinkling with delight as she watches Gwen weave. “Oh, the color is a delight.”

Gwen dips her head, smiling at the praise. Her lady looks good in green. It brings out the luster of her hair and the brightness of her gaze, and distracts from the dark circles beneath them and the sallow pallor that sometimes steals over her face, evidence of her sleepless nights. The gold thread will remind the court that she is the King’s ward—beautiful, noble, her every action sanctioned under the King’s power. 

She knows the war her lady is fighting. No one would expect for a sorcerer to wear Pendragon gold. 

“Since we can hardly have this done before this afternoon’s festivities, you ought to pick out what you want to wear tonight,” she tells Morgana. “I’ll help you dress when I finish here.”

Morgana brushes her words away, stepping even closer to where Gwen sits. “There’s plenty of time until the feast. The party from the Fenlands hasn’t even arrived yet,” she says. She smiles down at Gwen, setting gentle fingertips on her shoulders. “Now budge over. I’ve never gotten the hang of the loom, but it can’t be any worse than pricking my fingers raw over a little flower, can it?”

Gwen obligingly scoots over on her cushion, leaving enough room for Morgana to sit down next to her. They are close enough that she can feel the heat of Morgana’s flank against hers. Gwen has been serving Morgana since her tenth name-day. Some things have not changed since then. Morgana has never gotten any better at embroidery, and Gwen has never stopped feeling like the besotted girl she was on that day, when she had been bracing for a cold and distant mistress and a beautiful princess ran up to her instead, folding her into a hug that smelled like lavender and announcing that they were to be best friends.

Even back then, Morgana was ever the prophet.

“With you, it might well be worse,” Gwen mutters below her breath, though not so softly that she meant for it to be a secret, and Morgana’s answering laugh rings through the room.

“Humor me, Gwen,” Morgana says. 

Her mock-pout is as it has always been, as endearing as it is ridiculous, and the curls of her hair are sweet with lavender. Gwen feels warm to the tips of her fingers. She guides Morgana’s hands over to the shuttle and shed-rod, wrapping her fingers around the smooth-worn wood. "Like this, my lady," she murmurs, and together, they pass the weft to and fro.

\-----

The afternoon light beams tawny into the courtyard, setting the red and gold regalia of the court alight. Gwen stands two paces behind Morgana, side-by-side with Merlin as they await the arrival of the delegation from the Fenlands. Her lady shines where she stands next to Arthur, the deep burgundy of her dress as vibrant as wine against the stone of the castle and the armored knights who surround her. 

“It’s the Fenlands king, isn’t it?” Merlin’s voice tears Gwen away from her observations. He is squinting against the sun, his arms tightly crossed. “Where are they even from? The council was saying something about it—”

“Queen Sada’s family hails from Córdoba. Where have you been for the past fortnight?” she asks in a whisper, half-fondly, half-incredulously. “The Fens have never accepted a betrothal offer for their princess before. Camelot stands to benefit immensely if this goes through. The delegation is here until Midsummer, at the least. And you know, if a marriage is agreed-upon—”

Horns sound from outside the castle. A herald announces the meeting of royalty. King Alcman rides into the courtyard with his daughter at his side, their retinue passing through the gates behind them. She is tall and commanding on her horse, the blue and silver of her house’s colors jewel-bright against her deep skin, and the richness of her hair falls behind her in long, tight braids. She rides astride, matching her father. The leather of her saddle is fine and well-worn, buckles and studs gleaming in the light.

The king dismounts to greet Uther and then gestures to the woman still on her horse. “My daughter, Princess Yalena,” he announces, and the pride rings clear in his voice for a moment before he retreats into formality. “I hope she will honor your kingdom as she does mine.”

Gwen glances over at Merlin. He looks pained. She reminds herself that a good friend would not needle him in his hour of distress. 

The feast that evening is as loud and grand as any in memory. Gwen hears brief snatches of conversation as she serves watered wine to the women of the party. King Alcman insisted that his daughter sit at the high table with him, and Uther agreed for the sake of her dowry. He boasts of Camelot’s wealth, her full treasury and many orchards. _I know you must not be used to such comfort in the Fenlands, but such abundance is but the norm here_ , he tells her. _You will want for nothing._

The princess half-smiles and demurs. She mutters something in Arthur’s direction, and he bursts out in a startled laugh. Gwen shakes her head, smiling to herself. A saddle like Yalena’s would be worth gold in plenty, in the Fenlands or in Camelot.

A hunt is announced, to commence in three days’ time. There is to be another feast that same evening. Arthur seems more enthusiastic at the prospect of impressing a potential intended than he usually does. Gwen slips off with her empty pitcher, retreating to a quiet corner to take a moment of rest. She smiles briefly up at Merlin when he joins her with a mostly-empty platter of sweetmeats, and they finish off the food in amiable quiet. The torches are smoky, so late in the evening. 

"They're behaving today," Gwen mutters, after the sweetmeats have been demolished between them.

"I know. It almost feels wrong, y'know." Merlin shudders. "What's a feast without a little haranguing, Gwen? Or a little spilled wine? When's the last time Lord Edward's been so civil to you? Never! Because he never is!"

"I'm guessing they've been told to act with their best manners. Uther wants to impress the delegation."

Merlin pauses, then declares, “I don’t like her.”

Gwen sighs, licking absently at the honey on her fingers. Defining the _her_ in question is unnecessary—it always has been, in Merlin’s case. “She holds her wine. She was polite everyone, including us. She seems to be nothing less than a capable, beautiful woman. I haven’t seen any princess in recent memory make Arthur laugh like that. What isn’t there to like?”

“Exactly,” Merlin says triumphantly. “No one is that perfect. Arthur is besotted with her, when have you ever seen someone besotted with anyone so quickly? She’s probably—a sorcerer. Or a faerie. Or a—”

“Not every prospective political betrothal is a pretense for a magical assassination.” Gwen shakes her head, chuckling. “Would it be so awful, to have Princess Yalena as a future queen? She’s been co-regent with Alcman and Sada since she came of age. She knows how to rule. The people speak highly of her.”

“Well, when you put it like that—” Merlin grimaces. “Still though. Uther only wants this marriage because of what it'll do for Camelot's exports, or something. He doesn't give a damn about Arthur's happiness, he only cares that the bride is royal and comes with a trading agreement and a dowry. Arthur should have the freedom to marry anyone he wants! It's not fair to him, or to you, to have to—"

Gwen looks off into the firelight, picking off the last remnants of the sweetmeats from the plate. The feast is slowing down, the lords and ladies growing louder and closer in their conversations. Morgana meets her eyes and winks from across the wide hall. Servants are moving around the edges of the hall, bringing around a sweeter mead to finish the meal. Merlin keeps talking. He is more enthusiastic about her and Arthur's courtship than she ever had been, even back when she and the prince were still lovers. She tells Merlin perhaps once a sennight that the prince's courtship has ended, and that they are no more than dear friends now, but to no avail. 

“—and he should be able to marry for love,” Merlin finishes. “As should anyone. Damn royal duty, and damn your difference in stations. I don’t understand how you’re not more upset about it, Arthur feels something for you, I know it, Gwen, it should be you up there, not some noble princess. You're worth ten of her."

“Merlin?” Gwen turns to him, regarding him in the firelight. He is wearing his best clothes, still with his mother’s neat mending. His face is a little flushed, either from the wine or the earnestness of his speech.

“Yes?”

She reaches over and ruffles his hair with her sticky fingers, making him turn even redder. “Stop using me as an excuse.”

He stares at her without blinking and then asks indignantly, "What are you _talking_ about?"

She opens her mouth to answer him and freezes. There, at the entrance of the great hall, a hooded figure new to the feast, with dark clothing and a hood covering the head. The figure slips along the edges of the room, heading inexorably to the high table. Even through the smoke and the many people, Gwen can make out gold sparks emanating from the stone-colored robes. “Merlin,” she mutters from the corner of her mouth, “do you see—”

“Sorcerer,” Merlin hisses, jumping to his feet.

The figure whirls around and catches sight of them. They vanish down a side corridor in a swirl of cloak. Without a moment’s pause, Merlin bolts across the room and rushes down the same hallway.

“Seven hells and hellfire,” Gwen mutters, and she sets off after him.

The corridor they’ve chosen is the servants’ way to the main kitchens. So late in the evening, the remnants of the dinner would have already been consumed, and they should all be headed out of the central castle to continue their version of the festivities long into the night. She feels relieved that she can’t hear any screaming or shouting in panic. Instead, there is only Merlin’s voice, shouting words she cannot understand, followed by loud crashing noises.

There are days when she wants to berate him for his carelessness. 

“Merlin!” she shouts loudly as she runs into the kitchens. “What in the name of the Mother is going on in there?”

She rushes through the door in time to see Merlin tear a fabric bag from the sorcerer’s hands and toss it into one of the hearths at the side of the room. With thunderous claps firing in succession like a volley of arrows, a panoply of flame swells from the stones of hearth, like the breath of some great beast. For a moment, they all stare at it in awe.

The sorcerer darts towards the back door of the kitchen. Gwen sprints to catch up with him, pulling a torch from a wall-sconce and grabbing a handful of flour from the head baker’s half-cleaned table. She throws the flour into the air and then rears back as she thrusts the torch into it, lighting it aflame. 

The sorcerer staggers backwards, thrown off-balance, and Gwen dives for a pan from the hearth, slamming it over the sorcerer’s head. The _thunk_ of a body hitting the ground is loud in her ears.

Merlin bounds up to her, breathing hard. “Good shot, Gwen!”

He doesn’t say anything about his magic. Gwen grits her teeth—if they didn’t have an unconscious intruder on the floor between them, she would confront him then and there. What if a knight loyal to Uther had heard the commotion? What if one of the cook’s apprentices had seen? The coin for turning in a magic-user is high enough to seem a fortune to a new castle servant. 

Merlin crouches down and pulls back the sorcerer’s hood. “Brigit’s hells,” he swears.

Gwen stares at the man’s face, and her irritation at Merlin fades. She is suddenly tired, down to her bones. She knows him. They both do—Isaac, the schoolteacher who crosses through the square every day and greets her kindly at the well. He teaches the children of knights and nobles in the day, and other children in the evenings. His sister had been accused of witchcraft over a year ago, and since her loss, his smiles for Gwen and his students have never gotten any less kind, but his face has grown thinner, more haggard. 

“We can’t let Uther know,” Gwen says.

There is shouting from outside the kitchens. Gwen swears inwardly at the sound of clanking armor, growing ever louder. Merlin looks pained. “If we say we’ve captured a sorcerer, he’ll burn for certain.” 

She looks around the kitchen, at the overturned barrels of fruit and the half-eaten loaves of stale bread. “Merlin—remind me,” she says slowly. “Uther doesn’t whip for theft anymore, does he?”

\-----

“It was just a thief, sire.” Gwen fiddles with handle of the pan in her hands. She stares steadfastly at Uther’s feet. “I’m afraid I got a little—overexcited. I apologize for the commotion.” 

She can all too easily imagine Uther’s disdainful gaze at Isaac’s unconscious form, sprawled across the dirty kitchen floor. It takes more effort than it should, to remind herself that it was inadvisable to hit the king with her frying pan as she had the schoolteacher. “Surely you can spare an apple or two for your people, sire,” she manages to say in an even voice. “Your feast for tonight used many of them.”

“Watch your tone, maid,” the king says warningly.

Gwen drops into a curtsey. “My apologies, sire. Please forgive me.” She rises but still keeps her eyes downcast. “It is merely—this spring has been less kind than those in the past years, sire. With such happiness coming to your court, your people deserve some share in it.”

Isaac starts to stir. Uther sighs. He’s apparently feeling generous. “A week in the dungeons, and no more. Let him keep whatever he took. And escort him to Gaius’ chambers, boy,” he says in Merlin’s direction. “Make sure your friend didn’t hurt him unduly.”

“Yes, sire. Right away, sire.” Merlin quickly bows to Uther and then hauls Isaac to his feet, draping the man’s arm over his shoulder. He staggers out of Uther’s view as quickly as Isaac’s near-consciousness would allow him, leaving Gwen alone with the king and the guards at his back.

“Who are you, again?” the king asks absently.

Gwen has been in Morgana’s service for half her life, and the king still cannot recognize her without his ward’s accompanying presence. The last time she stood so close to Uther, he had just condemned her father to death. 

She ducks her head, bowing deeply to avoid his gaze. “No one, sire. I am only a maidservant.”

He dismisses her with a flick of his hand, and she goes.

\-----

The next day, Gwen is sitting with the castle seamstresses, embroidering a panel of Morgana's dress, when the knights finish their practice. The dust-streaked squires troop into the sunlit room without ceremony, dumping tunics on the floor in front of their feet and leaving just as abruptly. Gwen _tsks_ and starts gathering up the clothing, sorting them into piles. 

"Fenlands colors," Letitia says, picking up one of the tunics. She is the oldest of them, and she tells stories of how her silk had rested across Ygraine de Bois's shoulders on her coronation day. Her eyes light gold whenever she embroiders, and her work stays vibrant and true for decades. No one speaks of it outside of their room, where Uther's guards never deign to go. "The boys must've had themselves a friendly challenge."

"That's good work, isn't it?" Isabella chimes in, crowding her face over Letitia's shoulder. She is the youngest of the seamstresses. Her eyes began to light gold six years ago, on her twelfth name-day, and she had wept and wept into Gwen's shoulder, unable to speak from fear. "Mother of the gods, I wish we had that kind of wool. It'd take two dyes, for our wool to take on that kind of color."

"Good wool, and good blades, too." Gwen holds up the prince's overtunic with its bright gold thread, and they all laugh at the three tearing slashes across the front. "Our lord didn't dodge fast enough, it would seem."

"Brigit's knobby knees, I would've paid to see his face," Mary calls from across the room. She was the one who taught Gwen how to weave, when she first came to the castle, and Gwen still seeks her out on days when the castle seems too vast and cold. Her magic makes tapestries which can withstand even the strongest of winter winds. When Uther heard of a threat of magic within his castle two months ago, he hadn't even looked to where she and Gwen had been standing, fixing the stays of a mended wall-hanging in the drafty council chambers. 

There is another round of giggles when Gwen turns the tunic to the back and reveals the dirt stain all across the red fabric. Hopefully Arthur had learned to be a better sport about it than he had been at the last tourney.

"D'you think it was the princess?" Isabella asks eagerly. "I heard the stablehands talking, there were blades on her saddle, and a bow that could take down a boar."

She sounds like a woman in love. Letitia obligingly searches through the pile of clothes in Fenlands colors, hissing in triumph when she finds an overtunic with gold and silver threading. "This one's a woman's fit and fine enough for royal blood—and it looks like she only got knicked in the arm."

Isabella cheers then blushes red when all the other women look at her knowingly. Letitia pats her on the shoulder, handing her Yalena's tunic to mend. "You can be the one to give that back to her, too."

"You'd better hope the prince gets his marriage, Bella," Mary says with a wink. "I wouldn't be surprised if our princess-to-be knows a fair deal of Greek."

"Mary!" Gwen chides, but she's smiling along with the rest of them.

"Wishful thinking?" Letitia asks blandly in Mary's direction.

"Who, me? Never." Mary tosses her hair back and grins. "My lady wife would have my head."

"Your lady wife is wondering the same thing we all are," Isabella manages to fire back.

Gwen nudges Isabella's shoulder in encouragement, pulling out a little spool of gold thread for her to use on Yalena's overtunic. The girl starts on her work with a little dance, humming under her breath. The tunic's colors deepen ever ever so slightly under her fingers, the metallic threads turning lightning-bright with her every sparking touch. Magic comes to Isabella—to Mary and Letitia, to Morgana and all of them—with an ease that crosses into necessity. Uther might as well demand that the trees stop changing their leaves with the autumn winds and growing fresh new shoots in the rains of spring.

They work the afternoon away, bantering and laughing until their threads run short and the air is thick with gold.

\-----

The plan had been for Morgana to entertain Yalena the following day, but the princess is more than happy to train with Arthur and his knights again. Morgana decides to go for a walk in the meadows around the city—to clear her head, she announces, and to strengthen her constitution, as it is such a lovely day outside. Gwen packs fresh cheese and fruit and mince pies for them both, and they set off outside of the walls. The fields are wide and bursting with flowers fine as lace, and though they are close enough to the castle that Morgana’s guard doesn’t deign to follow them, there is still the illusion that they are far from those all-seeing walls.

Gwen doesn’t bother to spread a blanket on the ground for her lady. Morgana settles into the grass by her side, taking her shoes off and burrowing her feet into the soil. They unpack their food but do not yet eat.

“They caught a girl in the lower town.” Morgana’s voice is low and hoarse when she speaks. Her fingers move restlessly, picking apart the small white flowers which strew the ground around them. The air is filled with the smell of crushed greenery. “The baker’s daughter. She was keeping the bread fresh.”

The air rushes out of Gwen’s lungs in a heavy exhale. She had thought during her first few years in the castle that she would get used to it. She had feared the same. But her fears have not yet come to pass—which means that she is now all-too-used to the futile, helpless anger that wells up in her throat, thick as bile. 

“This was your dream then.” Gwen starts to braid the long stems of the violets into a band, for want of something to do. They come together easily under her fingertips, blooming mail. “Last night.”

“Aye.” Morgana doesn’t say anything else.

Gwen lays her palm on Morgana’s back, tracing soothing circles to still her minute shaking. Her shoulder blades tremble as wings. “I haven’t heard of any public execution planned.”

“He wouldn’t plan one with the delegation here. The Fenlands are still open to magic-users, and Princess Yalena has a reputation for chivalry. She probably wouldn’t appreciate a child being burned alive.” Morgana’s angry twist of a smile is half-veiled in her hair. “Uther wants passage for our exports too much to risk confronting her with the fact that we’re a slaughterhouse.”

“Which means she has a month,” Gwen says decisively. “We have one month to get her out of Camelot.”

“She can’t be more than ten or eleven,” Morgana whispers. “She’s just—we buy hand-pies from her stall, every solstice, every equinox. She tucks flowers into the wrappings for us. And I—I heard her screaming last night, I heard her die—”

Not everything Morgana sees in her dreams come to pass, but many things do. And the more she tries to push away the dreams through sleeping draughts and sleepless nights, the more she struggles to keep fire from bursting at her fingertips, the bloodier her dreams become.

Magic comes to its users as naturally as breathing. Gwen has witnessed what happens to a body when it is deprived of breath. 

Camelot has drowned sorcerers before. 

“My lady, I know others in the castle who have magic,” Gwen says. She is careful to keep her voice down, even out here among the lush and verdant green. “They might be able to help you with your control.”

“Do they have dreams like mine?” Morgana asks.

Gwen shakes her head. “Their magic is less than the power the baker’s daughter has, if the guards could see her doing it. It simply—helps them on tasks. They would still burn if Uther knew, but he would never have reason to suspect. Most of them—I don’t think they could even light a candle.”

Morgana laughs. It is not a happy sound. “Would that my magic were like that,” she murmurs, her voice low and hoarse. “Would that I could live so easy.”

She folds, sagging against Gwen, and Gwen holds her tight. The lives of seamstresses and smithy apprentices are by no means easy. They know burdens Morgana has never imagined to shoulder. But the life of a powerful seer under a hateful king—that too brings with it a burden. Morgana’s screaming had brought the guards into her room last night, and Gwen barely had the time to snatch up a torch from one of the sconces and light it on the flames crawling up Morgana’s bed hangings before they barged in. The guards griped at Gwen for her clumsiness, and she apologized profusely before shooing them out on grounds of propriety. She locked the door behind them and then coaxed Morgana out of her fear, until she finally let the fire subside.

“Even when there are others, I am still alone, Gwen,” Morgana mutters into her neck.

“Should I be offended at that? You still have me,” Gwen retorts, gently carding her fingers through Morgana’s hair.

"Yes." Morgana does not lift her face from Gwen's shoulder. "And sometimes I wonder if that is a burden on you."

Gwen's fingers do not still where they comb through Morgana's mess of curls. She has worked every day of her life since she was old enough to carry firewood, first in her father's smithy and then in the royal household. She weaves fabrics she will never wear for a woman who has more dresses than she will ever own, and during the long, still days of winter, she serves grand meals to lords and ladies while the people in the lower town line up for their rations of grain. Her mind is heavy with many things, but this—

—Morgana trusts her. That is an honor beyond all else. And the closeness and affection with her lady which came with that trust can never heavy or burdensome, because the comfortable heat of Morgana at her side, the crush of her gown against Gwen's kirtle, the smooth slide of her hair through Gwen's fingers—they are nothing save pleasure to her, and if she did not know all too well the costs of battle on metal and linen and men, she would think in terms of the rush of victory, the gradual gains of great campaigns. She has spent ten years with Morgana. Desire is not part of a servant's duty, but every coming day only makes her more wanting. 

"You will never be a burden to me," Gwen tells her, daring to press a kiss to her hair. A smile tugs at the corners of her lips when Morgana curls closer to her.

She has seen Morgana courting, delivered tokens and jewelry and flowers on her behalf to noblewomen visiting Camelot. She begrudges none of them because their affairs are briefer than the seasons, only lasting as long as their envoys stay. Gwen knows the political and practical basis behind this—that Morgana is still expected to marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom to consolidate Camelot's power, that the visiting women want to preserve their reputations, that Morgana's magic will be exposed the moment anyone spends more than a couple nights in her bed. But none of these reasons, true as they may be, are as compelling as the fancies of her sentimentality: no matter whom her lady loves, she always comes back to Gwen in the end. Because it is Gwen she holds most dear.

That, Gwen tells herself, is solace enough.

“Eat this, my lady,” she says, passing Morgana a cluster of strawberries. They’re each the size of her thumbnail and brilliant as a freshly-dyed cloak. “They’re the first of the season, harvested only yesterday. I practically had to blackmail the cook into handing them over.”

Morgana’s laugh is a passing semblance of her boisterousness on days when she is feeling hale, and Gwen feels a little lighter.

\-----

They head back to the castle after midday, stopping by the south field to watch the knights at practice. It amuses Gwen to no end, how differently they see her when she is with Morgana and without. They ask her to repair their hauberks and straighten the buckles on their gauntlets whenever she comes alone, tossing her marks in repayment for grinding down the nicks on their daggers and inviting her to drink at the tavern with them. When she walks by with Morgana, they preen and spar like children, flashy and ineffective, as though a blacksmith’s daughter and Uther’s ward would not know the finer points of swordplay.

Gwen leans against a tree at the edge of the clearing, setting her basket down by her feet. Half the knights are pairing off, their swords gleaming in the afternoon sun. The other half stand and watch, whooping whenever someone lands a particularly good hit.

"None of them would last for a minute if this were an alley brawl," Gwen tells Morgana in a low voice.

Morgana smirks. "Of that I have little doubt.”

"Personally, I'd go for their legs first."

There is a moment’s silence, and then Morgana breaks into giggles. Gwen cannot help but join in, despite her best efforts to maintain a dry and stoic facade. The noise draws the attention of the knights on the sidelines. Lancelot beams, waving the two of them over.

"How goes it, sir knight?" Gwen calls jovially once they draw near.

"Well, my ladies. Quite well." There is a loud crash from the field. "Perhaps less well for my lord, but I do think some challenge is good for him."

They look over to see Yalena standing triumphantly over Arthur's prone form. "I remember when I used to beat him with swords," Morgana says wistfully.

Yalena takes off her helm, releasing her long braids to tumble down from her head. Her armor is well-made and well-worn, the chainmail cleverly mended in several spots. She offers a hand to Arthur, hauling him up from the ground as a squire hurries over with water for the both of them. Gwen and Morgana watch as Yalena drains a tankard and then claps Arthur on the shoulder, commenting on his back parries during the match. 

Arthur turns and catches sight of them. He grins widely as he beckons them closer. "Princess Yalena,” he announces, “if I may introduce the Lady Morgana. She has been in Camelot since we were both young, and she is like a sister to me. Do not believe a single word she says about anyone.” Morgana winks, and Arthur rolls his eyes. He continues, “And Guinevere here is the head maid in her household, and dear to all in the castle."

Yalena bows deeply to them, as graceful in that motion as she was with her sword, and Gwen feels herself smiling. “Guinevere, Lady Morgana, you both look stunning today,” Yalena says smoothly, taking up Morgana’s fingers in her gauntleted hand. “I met you at the feast, my lady, but it is an honor to be reacquainted.”

She bends, as if to kiss Morgana’s hand like a knight, and then freezes mid-bow. 

“My apologies, Lady Morgana,” she mutters in a clipped voice. She swivels stiffly to Gwen and adds, "My lady," before she quickly walks towards the armory with long strides. 

Gwen stares at Arthur, one eyebrow raised. He stares back at her, blissful and sunny. She turns her gaze to Lancelot, who only shrugs sheepishly. Behind him, Leon coughs into his fist. 

“She seems lovely,” is all Gwen says out loud.

"She really is, isn't she?" Arthur asks brightly.

Morgana's lips are twitching ever so slightly. "You might learn a thing or two from her about how to treat a woman," she says in a mild voice.

\-----

That night, Gwen awakens to Morgana’s screaming again. 

Her quarters are a decently spacious room branching off Morgana’s antechamber. They are far enough from her lady’s inner chambers that she shouldn’t be able to hear her dreams, but Gwen has always been a light sleeper, and Morgana’s night terrors still wake her up long before dawn. She hastens out of bed and hurries barefoot across the wooden floor.

"I hate him," Morgana spits when Gwen enters her room, hunched over where she sits with her elbows braced on her knees. Her shoulders are shaking, thin and bird-like against the richness of her bed-curtains. The sky outside her window is black as soot. Gwen rushes across the room to sit next to her, running gentle fingers over her snarled mess of curls. "I hate him, I hate him—"

"I know," Gwen murmurs. Lately, the nightmares no longer turn Morgana to the unadulterated terror of the years before. She is angry when she wakes up now, not just fearful.

Gwen is glad for it.

"I can’t stop seeing her die, Gwen, I hate him, I hate—" Morgana is crying in earnest now, wiping haphazardly at her nose and cheeks. When Gwen reaches to hug her, every candle in the room blazes like the dawn, and Morgana recoils from Gwen, digging the nails of her right hand hard into the palm of her left and curling away so her face cannot be seen.

Gwen can still make out her chanting in a hitched and frantic voice, "I hate—I hate this, I hate this—"

"No, my lady," Gwen snaps. She slides off the bed and crouches in front of Morgana, reaching up steady hands to cradle her face until she finally looks up with red-rimmed eyes. "Do not say that." She grips Morgana's wrists, easing her hands apart. "Hate Uther, if you must. Hate him as the king. Hate him as the one who raised you. But never—" she squeezes Morgana's hands tightly, until her tremors cease. "Never hate yourself. Never hate what is in you."

She stays with her lady, holding her until her tears run dry.

\-----

The wardrobe flies opens with a _clang_. Morgana rifles her silks and satins with a ferocity most would associate with the training fields.

“I must have a fitting dress somewhere,” she announces after she reached the final dress and found it wanting. “Yalena will be there as the toast of the feast, and I simply cannot afford to be upstaged by a guest, no matter how great a boar she has taken down.”

Gwen unlocks one of the trunks in the corner of the room, watching as Morgana searches through the dresses with a fervency that approaches panic. Her smile is set too wide and does not match the tightness of her face. “It looks as though you will have to grow used to the princess at our feasts, my lady,” she says as she starts to unpack old dresses, fragrant with cedar and dried lavender. “I hear the betrothal is to be announced within the fortnight.”

“I rejoice for Camelot,” Morgana says, throwing aside a heavy mantle with a grunt. “And I pity her. Mother and gods above, why do I have so many dresses? Maybe we should move some of these down to the seamstresses, Gwen, I haven’t worn the blue one in years—”

They start to sort the clothes into piles. “To move so far away from one’s home, one’s kingdom,” Morgana mutters, almost to herself, “and then married to a _boor_ —admittedly, Arthur is kinder than most boors, but he’s a boor nevertheless—and then one is expected to feel blessed and happy. And all so Camelot can trade her apples and wool through the Fenlands.”

“The King is quite pleased with the alliance,” Gwen says. She speaks softly, her hands folding dresses by rote.

“Aye. Now there is but Norfolk and Suffolk, and Camelot will be allied with all the lowlands.” Morgana sighs, a shuddering sound. Her fingers stiffen in the velvet folds of a dress. “Edelward has a son. Unmarried. Young.”

“My lady—” Gwen breaks off, reaching out to thread her fingers through Morgana’s. “It will not go through. It’s only the first offer, Uther will not marry you so rashly—”

“And so am I a calfling to be auctioned off on the block to the highest bidder?” Morgana's lips twist. “I have thought to myself—perhaps it will be for the better. Magic has a place in Norfolk, still. And perhaps the prince will be—” Morgana shakes her head with a sudden fire, biting at her words like they are more bitter than yarrow. “But why should I count that a blessing? Why does that matter, that I might be blessed with a husband better than rot? How does Arthur have more of a claim on Camelot than I?”

“It won’t go through,” Gwen repeats. She starts folding Morgana’s discarded dresses again. The fabric will go to other women’s dresses, to mend shifts and skirts and stockings, to cut into precious squares for the cook’s daughter and the stablehand’s son to tie around their hair on feast days. Morgana has more dresses than Gwen has even owned in her life, each sewn from fabrics worth their weight in gold.

And it was Morgana’s future with which these dresses were paid, in a purchase that was decided for her before she knew enough to choose. 

Gwen thinks that too must be why she wakes up screaming every night—the weight of her golden world closing in on her, until she can no longer speak. There are no places in the castle where a royal ward might let loose her rage without fear of censure. Morgana is only allowed to scream when she is afraid.

"Let me show you something, my lady," Gwen tells Morgana abruptly.

This would be unthinkable, if they were anywhere save Camelot. Gwen lays Morgana's favorite red dress out on her bed, carefully arranging the burgundy folds. She stacks Morgana's discarded dresses on top of it, layering together silk and wool and linen. 

"Gwen, what are you— _Gwen_!" Morgana jumps to her feet when she sees the knife in Gwen's hand. It is the small one keeps in her belt, to cut off loose threads and trim the edges of skirt panels. When he gave it to her, her father said it had been Ammaline's.

"Do you trust me, my lady?"

"Yes, always, but—by the Mother, what are you doing?"

"Trust me, Morgana." Gwen hefts the knife in her hand. "Silk and wool are among the strongest substances found in nature. They are resilient beyond the brute force of metal."

She throws the knife down with a flick of her wrist. It disappears into the layers of fabric. "Watch, my lady," she says, drawing out the knife.

One by one, she lifts the dresses up from the pile. Morgana comes closer to watch, resting her chin on Gwen's shoulder. The fabrics pass through her fingers—dyed linen fine enough to see straight through, soft wool worn by the years, cool and vibrant silk. She finally peels back the final layer of fabric to uncover the burgundy underneath. A wide grin breaks across her face at Morgana's laugh of delight when she sees that her red dress is untouched.

\-----

“This castle has too many people in it,” Merlin declares the next time they meet. He flops himself down on the kitchen bench next to her, helping himself to a heel of bread and some cheese cut from the inside of the rind. “You can’t walk two paces without running into a lord who wants you to run his laundry down to the river.”

Gwen inclines her head with a grimace, conceding the point. In addition to the court’s everyday residents, there are always visiting nobility and knights errant passing through. The party from the Fenlands is at nearly two-score strong, and one of Uther’s northern allies had just sent his ward to summer in Camelot. While there is a date of departure for at least half of the Fenlands delegation, Gwen has no idea when the Lady Aulide and her retinue will leave.

“At least King Alcman’s people seem kind so far,” she says, tearing herself a piece of bread from the end of a loaf.

Merlin groans. "Don’t get me started on them, Gwen.”

“Let me guess. The Princess Yalena?”

“She gave me a knife," Merlin says in faint tones of horror, holding out the weapon in question between his thumb and forefinger, like it's some sort of poisonous insect. "And it has so much gold on it. So, so much gold. It's probably worth three years' wages, Gwen. Why did she give me a knife? Is it a threat? Is she trying to threaten me?"

Gwen pops her bread into her mouth with one hand and takes the knife in the other, drawing the blade to inspect it. Her eyebrows fly to what feels like her hairline. "Merlin—do you have any idea what this is?"

"A knife? A _threat_?"

"Gods and hells, Merlin, no, this is Damascus steel." Gwen strokes the metal, awestruck. "Forget the gold, this is worth a king's crown. I've heard of it, but I didn't think I'd ever get to hold any." Her eyes narrow in calculation. The more strategic among Arthur's potential brides have, in the past, used kindness to Merlin as an avenue of favor with the prince. None of them had ever given Merlin a gift some princes would duel for. "Why in the Mother's name would she give you Damascus steel?"

"I—don't—know!" he says, flapping his hands for emphasis. He pulls at his hair, groaning. "I don't get her, Gwen. If she's trying to kill Arthur, she could've done it by now. If she's trying to seduce Arthur, she's doing it in the most roundabout way I can imagine. If she's trying to kill me—she's doing a damn good job!" He whirls about. "Did you know Arthur invited her to his rooms last night? They spent the whole night drinking. Drinking, Gwen. They both still had their swords belted on, it was mad. When I tried to go down to the kitchens to refill the pitcher, she insisted that someone else do it and then told me to sit down with them! At the table!"

Gwen looks down at the beautiful knife in her hand, then back up at him. She starts laughing. Merlin makes a strangled noise of frustration. 

"Why are you laughing at my suffering? I had a princess asking me about my family. She asked after my mother. She asked me if I enjoyed hunting." He seems even more pained. "She asked me if I preferred a falchion to a longsword, and I don't even know what a falchion is."

Gwen tries her best to stop her giggles, for Merlin's sake. "A falchion is a single-edged sword. You wield it one-handed. At the very least, it seems like Arthur will have a good partner in conversation with her."

"Knives, tourneys, swords, and hunting," Merlin mutters. "There's two of them now. Gods help us all."

Gwen slips the knife back into its sheath and taps it against the palm of her hand. "Merlin. It is not a threat. She sees you as an ally." She hands it back to him. "And when you see her again, tell her you have a friend who's a blacksmith. I wouldn't mind having having a knife like that for myself."

Three days later, Gwen answers the knocking at the entrance to Morgana’s chambers. She opens the door and curtseys to Yalena. “My lady isn’t here at the present, Highness,” she says. “She’ll return in the evening, if you wish to come back then.”

“I was actually hoping to come talk to you.” Yalena smiles at her, no less charming in courtly attire than she is in armor. “Your name is Guinevere, my lady?”

Gwen blinks at her. “Yes, Highness. Gwen for short. Though I am only Morgana’s maidservant.” She steps aside to let Yalena into the anteroom, leaving the door open.

The princess steps into the airy chamber, her smile widening and only becoming more winsome. She crosses over to the window, peering through the panes. "By God, what a view. Your glass here is clear as water.” She turns back to Gwen. “Merlin—that is the name of the prince's friend, isn't it?—he told me you are a blacksmith. I thought you might appreciate this.”

She hands Gwen a cloth-wrapped bundle, and Gwen takes it. There is a dagger inside—no goldwork on the hilt, only fine-grained leather. It is a dagger meant to be used. She unsheathes it, unsurprised but still awed all the same by the fine banding on the blade, like foam on the sea. “I can’t take this, Highness.” She quickly re-wraps it in the cloth. “It’s too much.”

“Call me Yalena, Gwen,” the princess tells her, pushing it back into Gwen’s hands. “It’s only a blade. Few have the knowledge to see it as more.” 

She steps away, clasping her hands behind her back as she starts to look around the antechamber. “You have so many looms here,” she says out of the blue, leaning close to one of them and running her finger lightly along a slender warp thread. “Your work is beautiful. I imagine it takes great strength, to have such skill in both metal and thread.”

Gwen bows her head. “The Lady Morgana’s household makes all the fabric for the castle, and some for the lower town. I take great pride in it.”

“As well you should.” The princess straightens. “I never learned how to weave. Apparently, I begged for a wooden sword for my fourth name-day, and I haven’t turned back since then.”

“My lady has never gotten the hang of the loom, either.” Gwen sets the dagger on the shelf where she keeps the threads spun through with gold and silver. "Why are you here, Princess Yalena?" she asks, carefully tucking the dagger behind the spools of precious metal.

Yalena paces over to the window again. “I wanted to give you the dagger,” she replies, her eyes trained on the land outside. She glances back at Gwen. “Perhaps I tire of the prince already.”

“I can give the dagger to my lady, if you like? She would be a better candidate for a royal favorite.”

"I jest, Gwen." Yalena shakes her head, grinning ruefully. "I have seen the way you regard her, and she you. Even were my affections not already occupied, I have no desire to intrude on a happy affair."

So the princess already has a lover of her own. Gwen doesn't tell Yalena that she and Morgana are not so. Not yet. 

She joins the princess at the window, and they stare out at the sunlit trees in silence. Yalena holds herself tall and proud, even in the quiet of Morgana’s chambers. Nevertheless, Gwen can see the signs of tiredness on her face, the tightness around her eyes that does not go away, no matter how much she grins.

“You should know,” Gwen says. “Merlin is not the prince’s lover.”

The corners of Yalena’s mouth twitch. “But am I incorrect about the prince’s intentions?”

Gwen hesitates. She has never seen anything or heard anything of enough weight to tell. But she pays attention to the warp and weft of things, and she remembers how she had once looked at Lilian the apothecary’s daughter and the other girls in the village who were tall and strong and beautiful, back when she was young, uncertain in everything a human heart could want. If there were anyone to tell—if there were anything to tell—it would be Yalena, who knows well the weight of such wanting. 

“I—I do not know, my lady.” Gwen weighs her words carefully, like they are iron to be smelted, silk to be dyed. “King Uther’s edict on magic in Camelot condemns people to execution based on something with which they were born, something that can be grand if it is allowed to flourish. To grow up under a father who can judge others so cruelly simply on the fact of their being—" she shakes her head. "I do not think he shares the king’s prejudices, but fear is an easy thing to instill.”

She realizes that Yalena is not looking at the trees or the land. The glass has broken her reflection into many pieces of a face—brows, nose, eyes fixed in the distance, on something Gwen cannot see. “I kissed a woman in the middle of our court,” she says. Gwen cannot tell if she had meant to say the words out loud. “At the height of spring, when everything was green and fresh. The courtiers all cheered and threw flowers for us to catch. I am lucky, in many ways.” She turns to Gwen, her lips pressed tight together. “And the next day, after we danced the night away in front of them all, my father’s advisors were planning a marriage for me, and not to her. They thought it was privilege enough for her to be my mistress, in a city that hates her.”

It is scant luck, to be regarded with such grim tolerance. “I'm sorry, Yalena,” is all Gwen can say.

"Don't be. You bear no blame." She steps back from the window, and she smiles one last time, once again gallant and bright. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Lady Gwen.”

She leaves before Gwen can say another word. Gwen stares after her retreating back for a long moment before picking up her laundry basket decisively. The laundresses must be done with the bed hangings by now. 

\-----

Gwen hauls her laundry basket through the doors of Morgana’s bedchamber and freezes at the sight that greets her. "My lady—” she starts, setting the basket down. “What is all this for?”

Morgana rises from her chair. "Why, your name-day, of course!" she announces, sweeping across the room. She hugs Gwen tightly, pressing her nose into her neck, and Gwen can feel her lady’s lips moving as she says, “May your year be blessed, Gwen.”

Gwen strokes her back through her dress, looking at the table in the center of the room. It is laden with lit candles and sprigs of lavender and violets, fresh strawberries and sweet pies and a plate of peaches, of all things—ripe peaches, firm and rosy, in Camelot before midsummer. Gwen can smell them from across the room, their sweet fragrance cutting across even the scent of lavender. She adores peaches. She last had one on Morgana’s name-day, years and years ago.

“Was this why you told me to launder the hangings yesterday?” she asks, pulling back from Morgana’s arms. “So you could surprise me?”

Morgana pinks. “I know you always go down to the laundresses in the afternoon.”

Gwen laughs, hugging Morgana again. She wants to trace the blush on her cheeks, kiss the lively bloom of color. “Where on earth did you get peaches at this time of year?” She sits down and eagerly takes up one of the fruits. Sweetness spreads on her tongue after the first bite, sharp as a blow but without the sting. It is better than she remembers. “Where did you get so many of them?”

“A lady never tells her secrets, Guinevere,” Morgana says, her voice playfully mock-arch. “You’re not the only one who can blackmail the cook, you know. I might hold no power in that woman’s domain, but your friends got her to open up her coffers for you.”

“Isabella got these for you,” Gwen concludes.

“And the Lady Mary. They only ask that you bring them some to share.”

Gwen tallies the plates on the table and realizes that there is food enough for all of them, of the quality and rarity that Isabella and Mary and Letitia would rarely see, no matter how close they are with the cook. 

Morgana sits down next to her. Her smile is wide and fond, bright even in candlelight. “I remember how you reacted when I first tried to give you something for your name-day. This is far more pleasant.”

Gwen grins widely. She remembers it, too—her throwing the silk dress on the ground and stomping on it, enraged that Morgana would try to give her something that she had made in the first place; Morgana bursting into tears, screaming that it had been her most beautiful dress. The next year, Morgana begged Uther to throw a feast for Gwen. The king indulged her, and Gwen hid in the seamstress’ room for the entire evening, yelling at Morgana through the door for turning her into party entertainment for the nobility. Luckily, Morgana soon learned to be less extravagant—but that was always a relative term with her. She once tried to offer Gwen a set of jewels worth twice a king’s sword. 

When they had both come of age, Morgana began to offer Gwen land and titles. Gwen turned her down every time, swearing that she would never be a lady titled by Uther’s hand and sanctioned by Uther’s rule. Letitia had been quietly furious when she told her friends about the first offer. _Do you know how many us you could have fed and housed with an estate and an income?_ she asked, drawing her needle through muslin with a twist more suited to a knife. _Do you know how many of us you could have saved?_

Pride is a luxury, but Gwen stands by her oath. She will never consent to a title if it is still Uther she must call her liege.

Morgana is far better at choosing name-day presents now. For the past few years, it had been bouquets of purple flowers placed on her bedside table and small pins to put in her hair, days off to spend with her father and quality shipments of iron for their smithy in the month of midsummer.

And for this year—an evening with her, occupation away from the echoes of grief.

“I like this far better than the horse,” Gwen said, setting aside the pit of the peach. She licks at her lips, chasing the last of the sweetness. “And the ermine cloak. And the tapestry.”

Morgana reaches for her hand, clasping it between both of hers. Her fingers are cool and soft. “I still stand by what I have promised you. Every single promise, of every single year. Horses, cloaks, land, titles—honey from Aragon and figs from Anatolia, gold for your dresses and your hair, all the emeralds in the Isles. Anything Camelot can reach. You need only ask.”

Gwen cannot move, caught by the glittering green of Morgana’s eyes and the gold of the candlelight. “I—certainly wouldn’t mind the figs and honey, but—my lady—”

The title makes Morgana lean away, breaking their strange and striking stillness. Gwen shakes her head, catching her hand before she can pull away entirely. “Morgana,” she says, her voice heavy with breath, and the syllables pass her lips as something close to benediction, or command. “I don’t want any of that.”

Morgana shakes her head. “There must be something you want,” she says. “Surely you want something more than—laundering my bedamned bed hangings.”

"Of course I do,” Gwen laughs gently. She brings her other hand up to cover their entwined fingers. “But I will do it on my own terms. As I ever have." They look at each other, and Morgana’s lips are parted and her eyes are wide and eager, as if in wonder. "All I want for now—is to live happy and hale, and to see others do the same. To see you thriving, and no longer fearful. To see you— _you_ ," she confesses in sum, swept up in Morgana's closeness, the honeyed flecks in her gaze, the freckles the summer sun has dappled on her skin. There is a singular immediate answer to the question of _want_ , and Gwen is in no mood to consider the abstract. "I want you, Morgana."

Morgana's inhale is a shocked, almost wounded sound. "You don’t mean that.”

“I do. Though only if you feel the same.”

“Gods, Gwen,” Morgana exhales. “I do. Of course I do. I do, and I have, but—surely—" she trails into silence.

Gwen squeezes their laced hands tightly. “This is what I want, Morgana.”

A faint tremor runs through their interwoven fingers. "I am not enough for you, Gwen," Morgana murmurs, her eyes skittering away from Gwen’s, as though she cannot bear to look. "You’ve seen me. You must want more than that.” She swallows hard. “You certainly deserve more."

“No.” Gwen slides out of her chair and stands in front of Morgana, cupping her face between her palms and tilting it up into the light. “No. Morgana. How can I want for more than you?”

Morgana is silent. Her eyes flicker shut.

“I would lay the world at your feet,” she finally says in a small voice, in lieu of an answer. 

She sounds scared. She sounds like she’s pleading, like she wants Gwen to believe her, and Gwen wants to laugh but cannot, because she does, she believes her to her core—Morgana of Camelot has never been anything but terrifyingly literal.

Gwen is holding a storm between her hands, and she aches.

“May I?” Gwen asks, leaning down, brushing her thumbs over the planes of Morgana’s cheeks. “May I, Morgana?”

Morgana’s eyes snap open, a glory of green. “Please,” she breathes.

"My lady," Gwen whispers hungrily, and she kisses her.

The light of the candles is a soft warmth all around them. She threads her hands through Morgana’s hair, sinking her fingers into the curls she had arranged that morning. Morgana makes a sound, half-gasp and half-groan, and Gwen slips her tongue between her parted lips and teases the heat beyond them.

Morgana lifts her mouth away. “You taste like peaches,” she says, sounding stunned. 

Gwen nods, and her smile is enough to pull at her cheeks, a sweet, unhoped-for twinge. “I just ate one,” she pants.

Morgana stares at Gwen like her nonsensical reply is a revelation. Her face is pink, her carmine messy. “Your mouth—” 

She reaches up and swipes her thumb along Gwen’s lips, rubbing off the red of her carmine and grinning as bright as a breaking dawn, and Gwen breaks into laughter from the sheer joy of it, kissing Morgana’s hand and chin and cheek, marking her with her own color.

“Gwen,” Morgana says. “Gwen—”

Gwen kisses her mouth deeply, and Morgana’s hands fall to her waist, pulling her close. She clambers onto the chair, crinkling the fabric of her dress as she straddles Morgana’s lap.

The candlelight seems dimmer by the time they pull each other into Morgana’s bed. Gwen’s fingers travel their familiar route over the stays and ties in her dress with a new alacrity, peeling off layers of linen and silk. Morgana is flushed and sweaty, the pink of her face travelling down her neck and chest, and Gwen presses her forehead to the place where her heart beats the strongest, overcome by the strength beneath her hands, the resilience of her.

"You are enough." She kisses Morgana's neck, savoring the thrum of her pulse beneath her lips. "You are enough." She bites along the sweet curve where her neck smooths into her shoulder, soothing each small hurt with her tongue. "You are more than enough, Morgana, more—" she trails her mouth down along her sternum, and Morgana bucks into her light touch.

"Gwen," Morgana breathes. Gwen looks up to see that her eyes have gone gold, bright as the sun at noon. "Gwen—you—" she gasps, tracing Gwen's face with a trembling hand, "—you are so beautiful—"

Gwen surges up to drink the gold from her mouth.

The next morning, she wakes up in a bed softer than her own. Morgana is gone, but there is a plate of halved figs on their bedside table, lush in the morning light, draped in honey that gleamed wet and gold. 

Honey from Aragon, figs from Anatolia. A smile bursts out over her face, and she eats her fill. 

\-----

“Let me give you a hand with that, my lady.”

Gwen straightens from the well to see the Lady Aulide standing behind her. She is pale in the light of the early day, tired as if from a sleepless night. Her hair falls around her head, just combed enough to be called untangled. “I can handle it, my lady,” Gwen replies, hefting the full buckets in her hands. “I’ve been drawing water from this well since I was tall enough to reach it.”

Aulide inclines her head. “You’ve been in Camelot for a long time then, it seems.”

“Aye. I grew up here.”

She starts to walk back to the castle, and Aulide falls into pace with her. The morning is brilliant over the castle, a hard and jewel-like blue.

“I haven’t been here for a very long time,” Aulide murmurs. Her face is tilted up to catch the light. Gwen tries to remember the last time she saw Lord Dimmond at court. Had he brought Aulide with him? She must have been a small girl then, with dresses that grew in brilliant colors her every name-day—a serious-faced child, asking to help the maidservants with their duties. The thought makes Gwen smile. 

“Do you like it here?” Aulide asks suddenly.

“It’s my home, my lady,” Gwen says simply. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

Aulide stills. “Even under your king?” she asks in a strange, stilted voice. She turns to face Gwen, and the expression on her face is too taut for such a bright morning, touching on desperation. “Even under a rule such as his?”

Gwen looks the woman over, wondering what could have her so suddenly stricken. Her gaze snags on Aulide’s skirts. They are expensively worked, fine enough for a lord’s ward but a little older in style than she would expect from a noblewoman who seem younger than Morgana. There are three moth-holes at the hem of her purple dress, unmended. They are hand-me-downs.

Uther and Dimmond were close allies, the last time she heard of him. He has stood at Uther’s side since the Purges. But lords are more fickle than the seasons when it comes to their alliances, and if a lord is out-of-sorts—his ward will be the first to feel his displeasure.

“Lady Aulide,” she says, meeting the woman’s eyes. “If Lord Dimmond has issue with our court, let him speak to the king himself. You should not have to bear your foster’s grudge.”

Aulide barks out a laugh. “Thank you, my lady.” She smiles at Gwen, and it does not quite reach what is in her eyes. “I will keep that in mind.”

Gwen shakes her head. “It is nothing. If you ever need to talk to someone—I am no lady, and I know little of noble affairs, but I will be glad to listen to you.” She hefts the buckets again, careful not to let any water slosh over the sides. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my lady, my duty calls.”

She hurries for the castle, turning Aulide’s strange smiles in her mind as she climbs the stairs to Morgana’s chambers. It is only the cruellest of lords who turn the men and women in their care into pawns in the game of kings, and cruel lords are a pence a dozen. Aulide is not the only lord’s ward to suffer this fate.

Her arms ache from the weight of the water when she finally reaches Morgana’s rooms. There are three chambermaids inside, who had helped Gwen haul the bathwater and tub up to her rooms, and they jump to attention when Gwen enters.

Morgana looks up from her bath, her hair dark and rich in the cool water. “Thank you, Gwen,” she says, her every gesture pleased and languid.

Gwen goes over to her with the buckets, pouring the water into the tubs. “Thank you all for helping,” she says, glancing up at the other servants. “You’re dismissed. Make sure to get enough water to fill the tub next time.”

They curtsey and leave. The eldest of them, Julia, winks at Gwen before shutting the door behind her.

Morgana half-rises from the tub, reaching a water-glossed hand to touch Gwen’s hand. “Is everything alright?” she asks, her eyes searching Gwen’s face.

Gwen grimaces at how easily Morgana can read her face and tone. “It’s nothing. Just—visitors.” She shakes her head, glancing at her lady in the bath. Aulide will be in Camelot for a while yet. “I’ll tell you later.” 

She walks over to the door to draw the bolt close before turning around to face Morgana fully. “You have better things to worry about now, my lady.” 

Gwen shucks off her dress and shift and climbs in with Morgana, slipping her knee between her thighs. Morgana’s mouth tastes like the coolness of fresh water, and Gwen wants to sink into her and never part. 

They stay in the water until her fingertips have wrinkled.

\-----

Gwen emerges from Morgana’s chambers when it is nearly midday, rushing through the courtyard to meet with Merlin for their meal in the kitchens. She arrives breathless and pink-cheeked. 

“You look happy,” Merlin tells her with a delighted sort of suspicion.

Gwen thrusts a hand-pie into his hand. “You needn’t sound so gleeful about it,” she says, but she can feel herself grinning.

He bites into the pie, shoulders slumping with pleasure. “My lips,” he says though his chewing, “are sealed. You give out the best bribes, you know.”

Gwen rolls her eyes as she starts eating her own hand-pie. She’s hungrier than she realized she was, and the filling is as good as the pies she buys on festival days, sweet and savory all at once and fragrant with clove. A shadow falls over the pair of them, and Merlin’s glances up before he makes a strange noise in the back of his throat.

“Princess Yalena,” she exclaims. “My lady, what brings you down to the kitchens? We can have some food sent up to your quarters, if you need it.”

“No, but—thank you, Gwen.” Yalena is dressed out of Fenlands colors today. The wool of her tunic is blue-gray, and her breeches are dark leather. She looks smaller than she does in her armor, and there is something shadowed in her eyes. “May I sit with you two?”

Gwen kicks Merlin under the table. He jumps and blurts, “Yes! Of course. Your highness.”

“Yalena, Merlin. I’ve told you many times.” Yalena folds herself down to sit across from Gwen. She rests her head in her hands for a moment, rubbing at her temples. “Thank you,” she repeats, clasping her hands on the table. “I hope this is not strange.”

Gwen smiles softly. “Perhaps a little, my lady. But it is still not unwelcome.”

Merlin looks like he is biting on his tongue. He quickly finishes his pie and leaves from the table with only a curt bow. Yalena grimaces. “No matter what I do, I can’t seem to appease him,” she says, dragging her hand over her eyes again.

“He’s worried for the prince’s safety. Maybe a little jealous. It’ll pass.”

Yalena doesn’t respond. She doesn’t lift her head. Gwen pushes one of her pies in front of the princess. “My lady—” she starts. It is no great feat of observation to see that she is tired, and angry, and perhaps a little frightened. “Why are you here in Camelot?” she asks the princess once more, in as gentle a voice as she can manage.

“My mother,” Yalena says, her words muffled in her palms.

Gwen scrunches her eyebrows together. “The Queen Sada—wants you to marry Arthur?”

“No. My mother—is a queen fit for the highest kingdoms. She is a scholar. A strategist. She can gauge the build of anything, be it a bridge across a river or an ambush in a battle. She has never touched a blade in her life because she has no need of it. Her hands and pen are enough.” Yalena looks up at last. “And to every dignitary who visits Kesteven, she will never be anything other than a scribess from Córdoba.”

“So you need the Pendragon name,” Gwen realizes.

“I have no need of the Pendragon name.” Yalena’s lips curl. “I have no need of any prince’s name. But my father and mother need to impress their allies, and with so newly established a house as ours—” she trails off. “Uther has the respect we do not, for all his other reputations. They need the name. So I need to try. And it is so easy to try, Gwen. Your prince wants nothing from me other than a partner in the ring. I spend my time here sparring and hunting and feasting, and everyone lauds me for my leisure.” She pauses and says in a choked voice, “I’ve been enjoying myself.”

“I’m glad to hear that, my lady.”

“No.” Yalena’s hands clench into fists on the table. Her face breaks like a mirror. “No, you shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be. I am a coward. A coward following the easy road and bound to damnation.”

“You are not a coward.” Gwen says softly. “It is not a crime to make the best of a bad situation, my lady.”

“My situation is not bad, Gwen. _My_ situation is sitting at a high table and following a path that was laid for me when I was born while Aelian—” Yalena’s voice crumbles at the unfamiliar name. Her eyes are wet. “My father’s advisors all told me I must marry a man. That I had to do it, for my honor and my line. That I am meant to exalt my home, not through the strength of my arm or the strength of my courage, but through my place in a prince’s bed.” She focuses on Gwen’s face. “Do you believe in destiny, Lady Gwen?”

Gwen finishes off her pie with neat bites. She considers the question carefully. “If I cared about what is destined for me, what is fated for a serving-girl—I wouldn’t be here.” She tilts her chin up. “I would be treating Uther’s edicts as the words from the gods, bowing and scraping to his son and his ward, and I would think myself blessed to live under a king such as him.” Gwen pauses and then declares, “Damn destiny.” 

Yalena laughs briefly. “If only I had you as my advisor, Lady Gwen. This would all be much clearer.”

“The gods made us and bound us only to ourselves, Yalena.” Gwen reaches across the table to quickly squeeze her hands. “Do not resign yourself to what others call destiny.”

Lance’s page comes to find them, telling Yalena that the knights have already started practice. She watches as Yalena pulls her shoulders back and lifts her head tall. The little boy looks up at her like she is Brigit come to earth as she gives him her hand to hold. He leads her out of the kitchens as though all his name-day wishes have come to pass.

Camelot needs a good queen, to rebuild what Uther burnt. Gwen wishes, for a brief moment, that Yalena were less good.

\-----

"I hear they are announcing the betrothal in three days' time," Gwen tells Morgana.

Morgana nods absently as she makes little tick-marks at the edge of the parchment on her desk, carefully checking each of the allotments for the fabric the castle has made. She and Gwen prepare her household's records together whenever a solstice or equinox approaches, making sure that the castle's spinners have adequate materials for the next season and that enough fabric is being passed along to the lower town.

"It shouldn't amaze me by now, how quickly you know these things, but it always does," Morgana finally says, signing the parchment with a flick of her wrist. "Uther's private council doesn't even meet until tomorrow." She flips to the next section of her records. "Domnonée has already sent us their next shipment, right?"

"Aye. It should arrive within the fortnight."

"Good. Our thread is running low." Morgana starts her careful survey of the columns tallying the materials the castle used in the last season. "Camelot is to have a new crown princess then," she says, returning to Arthur's betrothal. "I wonder if we'll still be doing this next season. It's one of the few duties a princess'll have in this castle."

She doesn't sound embittered, nor does she sound happy. Gwen moves her chair closer to Morgana's, pressing their knees together. “Would you want to be in Yalena’s place?”

"What, marrying Arthur?" Morgana snorts loudly. "I'd sooner cut off my own fingers and use them as fishbait, and I'm fairly sure he'd feel the same. Mind you, I enjoy wielding what authority I am permitted to wield, but there isn't enough royal power in all the scepters and crowns in the world to make marrying Arthur worthwhile."

"Not even as a pretense?" Gwen starts to prepare the wax for Morgana's seal. "A queen can have a lover too, you know."

"Oh, I'm well aware." Morgana smirks. "Our new princess might have one before she's even queen."

“She already does.”

“Oh.” Morgana pauses, then decides, “Good for her.”

Gwen tidies the stacks for the papers already finished and signed. Morgana yawns as she finishes another page, letting her head fall softly onto Gwen's shoulder. The reality of her lady—the slightness of her frame, her nails, bitten to the quick from the fear she kept at bay only through her brash laughter—makes Gwen somber. "I thought—you would want to be queen," she says softly into Morgana's bounty of hair.

Morgana is silent as the candles flicker. "I want—so many things," she confesses. She speaks as though she is recounting a faraway childhood dream: to walk among the clouds, to live forever. "I want to be king as Arthur will be king, through the right of descent and the strength of my arm, and nothing more. Or to be an advisor on the high council, and write laws to right the way of things. I want—for Camelot to live free. For no one of any blood to be hungry during winter, or thirsty during drought." She raises her hand into the air, and sparks jump across her fingertips. "For all of us—to live as we will.”

Gwen's throat is dry. She gently guides Morgana's head up from her shoulder and kisses her for a long moment.

“Do you think me too ambitious?” Morgana asks when they part, her every exhalation puffing against her cheek.

Gwen presses her lips to the corner of Morgana’s mouth. "I think you noble, my lady," she breathes.

The wax has melted. Gwen pushes the candle and seal towards Morgana and watches as her lady sets her mark into the parchment.

"What do you want in this world, Gwen?" Morgana asks, setting her seal aside.

"You are in a philosopher's mood today." Gwen laughs under her breath. "As I told you before—I want to see you thrive. To serve myself ably," she lists. "To live justly, under no one’s tyranny. To have the people around me live the same."

Morgana's smile is tender in the candlelight. "Then it seems as though you want to be a queen as well. A fine one, at that."

"I've closed off the path to those ambitions a while ago, I'm afraid," Gwen says. She clears her throat and turns away, gesturing to the table in front of them. "For today, getting through all your records is ambition enough for me."

Morgana eyes the pile of parchment left remaining. "You might be right about that."

\-----

It is late in the evening when she finally delivers the finished receipts to the record room. The trek back to Morgana's chambers seems longer than usual. The whole castle appears to share her tiredness; Merlin can only manage a weak grin in her direction when their paths cross in the courtyard, and Lady Aulide smiles wearily at her as she hurries past. She pauses next to the stairs when she catches sight of a figure pacing around the entrance of the guest corridor.

“My lady? Have you need of anything?” Gwen asks the woman. She recognizes her—Yalena’s companion, always at the princess’ right hand when they walk in the castle. A shy woman, who never stays for long before the eyes of the court. Up close, she is easily as tall as the princess, taller by a hand than Gwen. Her eyes are piercing, even when they are downcast.

“No, but—” the woman tails off, scrutinizing Gwen’s face in the flickering lights. “Perhaps yes. I have seen Yalena speaking to you, have I not?”

Gwen dips her head. “I have spoken to the princess, yes. Is everything alright with her highness?” 

The woman snorts, her face half-turned away. Her profile is striking, with her olive skin and proud nose, and her hair falls around her cheeks and chin, too short to braid. “Can I ask you a question discreetly, my lady?” she asks Gwen, her eyes trained on the guttering flames of the torch in front of them.

“Of course. I am a servant and no lady,” Gwen adds, “but I will hold your confidence.”

The woman clasps her hands in front of her, stilling her fidgeting fingers. “Is your prince—a kind man?”

Gwen narrows her eyes. Chambermaids and stableboys gossip, and servers and cleaners and sweepers—they all do. It’s only a question of what. She must have let something escape onto her face, because the woman holds out a reassuring hand. “I have heard no vicious rumor of your prince, either here or in the Fens; all they say of him is that he is courageous and strong, fit to his title. I ask only because—” her mouth thins. “I am asking because I worry for Yalena. The princess.”

“Arthur will treat her well,” Gwen says, and the woman bursts out laughing. It is not a happy laugh. 

Gwen stands in the middle of the corridor, watching the woman uneasily. Her clothing is like the princess’, tunic and breeches finely made but well-worn. She carries two knives at her waist and one in her boot. There is none of the blue and silver of the Fenlands on her outer ramient, only a knotted strip of those colors at her wrist, tied like a lady’s token on a knight’s vambrace—

“My lady?” Gwen asks abruptly. “Can we take this conversation into your chambers? These hallways can get busy.”

She turns to the woman once they are behind closed doors. “My name is Guinevere,” she tells her in a soft voice. “Gwen, to my friends. I am a maidservant to the Lady Morgana. I will hold whatever we speak of within these chambers in confidence, of that you have my word.” She looks into the woman’s eyes. “You are Aelian, are you not?” She points to the fabric tied around the woman’s wrist. “That is Princess Yalena’s. The lover's token.”

The woman freezes. She surveys Gwen’s face with her sharp gaze, working her jaw in silence. “Well, Guinevere, maidservant to the Lady Morgana,” she says at last, her words tight and clipped, “you have good eyes.”

“I’ve delivered such tokens for Lady Morgana before, my lady,” Gwen says. “I know the look of them.”

“You would cast aspersions on your lady thus?”

She squares her shoulders. “I do not view my words as aspersions,” she says. “Nor do you, if I am not sorely mistaken.”

The woman nods once, jerkily, and then turns away. 

“Yalena speaks of you with great fondness,” Gwen offers.

The woman laughs again. The sound ends in a shuddering sigh as she starts to pace around the room. “I am Aelian of Suffolk, Lord Roland’s ward,” she tells Gwen. “I am not in your kingdom on behalf of the Fenlands. I am only here for her.”

“I understand, my lady.”

“Do you?”

Gwen thinks of Morgana frantically searching through her wardrobe for her colorful armor, bracing for a fight that has been wearing her down since she was old enough to pick her own dresses. “I think I do.”

Aelian rakes her fingers through her hair. “I told her,” she snarls suddenly, whipping around to face Gwen in a sudden fervor. “I told her to be less charming. I told her to try a little less. But to honor her family, she must try to wed, and she would rather shoot herself in the foot than honor them ill. A knight of the realm, to the very last.” The fondness in her voice turns her grimace into something more like a smile, albeit a regretful one.

Gwen wonders if there are words that can comfort her. “The prince—Arthur—he admires Princess Yalena greatly,” she says tentatively. “I believe that he sees her as a kindred spirit.”

“Do not speak to me of your prince.” 

Gwen concedes the point with a grimace.

Aelian's hands are fisted in the empty air. “I spent half my fosterage in her father's court. We grew up side by side, and now her home and mine—” her voice breaks. “I can't stay in Camelot. I can’t. I would go mad. She asked me to, but I can't—I can’t stay.” She is speaking too quickly for Gwen to ask her any questions. “We didn’t think—we didn’t think it would get this far, we never thought he’d agree, but now they’re announcing it in two days’ time, and Camelot's so far—” She presses her fist to her mouth. “So damned far, and so—damned—distant—” 

She holds up a hand before Gwen can say anything. "Don't. You owe me no apologies. I should thank you instead, for indulging my rambling."

"It is nothing, my lady." Gwen searches for something to say. "I—wish you a good evening." 

Aelian laughs shortly. "And you as well, Guinevere."

Her drawn face is the last thing Gwen sees before she closes the door behind her.

\-----

The guards outside of Arthur's chambers open the doors for her without even asking why she had come so late in the night. She was once courted by the prince, which encourages them to regard her as a known and harmless quantity. The laundry basket she has propped on her hip makes her all but invisible on top of that.

Arthur looks up from the stacks of parchment on his desk. "Gwen, what are—'

“You have to stop the marriage,” she announces the moment she hears the click of the bolt on his door. She throws her basket, filled with Morgana's old bed-hangings, to one side. 

He raises his eyebrows. “Merlin? Is that you?”

“I’m serious, Arthur.”

The prince purses his lips, picking up his reed pen again. “Gwen, please don’t tell me you’ve also caught my manservant’s craze. You have to be the sensible one here. I know he has a strange, foolish charm, but you of all people should not be susceptible to it."

Gwen ignores his words. "Are you really so eager to marry her?"

Arthur glances at her, his brow furrowed. She stares him in the eyes. "No,” he says, and he lets out a sigh, setting aside the parchment and ink to rub at the bridge of his nose. “But—I like her. Isn’t that enough?”

He looks small, in the low torches, and so young. She shakes her head, a fond smile tugging at her lips. He deflates when she loops her arms around his shoulders, resting her chin on top of his head. She had consigned him to this fate when she told him that her affections for him did not cross into the passionate. He would've fought tooth and nail for her to be his future queen, had she not told him the truth. Of that she has no doubt.

“These affairs aren't about romance, no matter how much my father instructs me to woo prospective brides. You know that as well as I do. She is a good speaker. I admire her," he admits, fingers traveling to rub at his temples. "I certainly admire her skill with a sword. We need the passage for our exports. Marriages have been made on much less." He turns on his chair to face her. "I am lucky to have as much as that."

“They aren’t about romance, but surely you can do better than a miserable bride.”

Arthur silently weighs her words. “She never showed it,” he says finally. “Not once.” 

It says something about the state of royal marriages, how he doesn’t doubt her for a moment.

“No.” Gwen settles against the desk, glancing down at the papers next to her hand. Trade reports with North Anglia. Camelot is making more than she can sell right now. “That’s why she would have been a damn good queen for us.”

Arthur taps the uncut end of his pen on his armrest. He stares into his hearth, his lips pressed tight. “My father,” he says, “won’t allow it.”

“You can negotiate for Camelot to use the Fen’s coastways through other means; they are open to trading with us. It does not have to be with an alliance through marriage.” Gwen bends down to look into the prince's clear eyes. “For all you call Merlin a fool, he’s right, you know. You should have the chance to choose someone to love. And Yalena should, too.”

Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do,” he murmurs. “The king has more say in this marriage than I, Gwen. But—I will try.”

He loves his father, more than he should, but his promise still rings true—ever a knight of the realm, until the very last. She hugs him again.

\-----

The betrothal is announced. No one is surprised. Princess Yalena has stayed long enough in Camelot that the castle rumor mill, ever hungry for novelty, finally moves on to greener pastures. Gwen listens to Mary and Letitia argue about the Lady Aulide’s intention in Camelot as she works on Morgana’s dress, planting roses and thorns with her thread in a vibrant field of emerald.

“She wants to seduce the prince,” Letitia says confidently. 

“A woman like her? It can’t be,” Mary rebuffs. “She’s here to seduce a lady of the court.”

“No, it’s clearly the prince,” Letitia says, her fingers moving deftly over her panel of embroidery. “She wouldn’t be staying here for that long, if she just wanted that sort of alliance with any old courtier. I know ambitious disfavored wards can be. That’s why they’re sent out of their own kingdoms before they can topple them.”

“What if someone had acted ill towards her? Or dishonored her?” Isabella asks, looking distraught. “We can’t help her now, can we?”

Letitia pats her on the shoulder, not lifting her eyes from her work. “Disfavored though she might be, she’s still a lady, my girl. She has more in her coffers than we’ll ever see in our lives.”

Isabella sighs. “I wonder what color she likes best,” she says, tying a knot at the end of her thread.

Gwen starts to embroider the second of the flower clusters at the center of the green panel. The fabric is so smooth that the thread seems to pull itself. “I’ve seen her in a purple and gold dress a fair few times,” she tells the girl. “She ought not mind a token in those colors.”

Isabella frowns mournfully. “I shouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to impress the princess.”

Letitia chuckles. “Oh, how quickly the young heart turns. Aulide is a lovely woman, though, I’ll give you that.”

“A lovelier won’t ever be found, that’s for sure,” Mary says cheerily, working away at the rips in one of the castle’s old tapestries.

“Erinna won’t be happy to hear you say that, my love.” Letitia winks.

“Who’s Erinna?”

The whole room stills. Isabella drops her needle, and it chimes tinnily as it hits the floor.

Gwen slowly sets her own embroidery aside, her head racing. Mary’s fingers are still sewing away, but she isn’t looking at the torn tapestry in her lap. Her stitches are large and crooked. “Erinna, Mary,” Gwen reminds her in a soft voice. Her heart beats loud in her ears from quickly-mounting fear. “The town dyer. Your wife of three years.”

“Erinna—” Mary repeats distantly, her eyes hazy. “I—don’t know of any—”

She doubles over with a grunt, clutching at her head. 

“Mary?” Gwen shouts, rushing towards her crouched-over form. She pushes her upright, searching her contorted face. “Is everything alright, Mary?”

“Brigit’s—bedamned— _feet_ ,” Mary groans. One hand comes up to rub at her temples. Her eyes flicker open, clear again. “Hells and hellfire, what was that? I—I don’t—” she looks down at the corner of the tapestry between her hands and swears. “Who in the realms finished this rose? It looks like a miserable chicken stuck its claws into the weave and called it a day—”

Gwen presses her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. She turns back to the others in the room. They stare back at her with horror on their faces.

“What in the Mother’s name is happening here?” she whispers.

Letitia holds out a hand for her panel of needlework. “Go,” she says shortly. “Warn the castle. I’ll take care of them.”

Gwen hurries out the door, breaking into a run as she dashes through the corridors towards Merlin’s room. The Lady Aulide. The Lady Aulide is so charming, so pretty. No—the Lady Aulide has spread some kind of enchantment over the castle, and it made Isabella forget her adoration of Yalena, and Mary forget her wife, and—

Her steps slow. Where is she running, again? Why is she running? Aulide doesn’t want her to run that way; she wants her to bring Morgana over to the—

Gwen smashes her fist into the stone wall of the castle, grunting at the pain, which is bright as the kiss of hot iron. She looks down at the raw skin of her hand, bloodied at two knuckles. Her heart pounds. She needs to warn the others. She needs to—

—Morgana. Aulide wants Morgana.

Gwen whirls around and starts to run the other way. She cannot bring Morgana to Aulide. She cannot. No matter how much Aulide wants it—no matter how much she needs it, now matter how much the Lady Aulide deserves to have everything she wants in the world, because a woman so wonderful deserves the world at her feet—

She digs the nails of her left hand into the torn skin of her right, gritting her teeth at the pain. She doesn’t let go until she stumbles through Morgana’s door.

“My lady,” she gasps, reaching for Morgana’s hand. “Morgana. You have to get out of here, it’s not safe, Aulide’s cast a spell over this entire castle—”

“Aulide!” Morgana explains dreamily. She smooths her hair, staring off into nothingness with a gold-sparked gaze. “You must take me to her, she wants me to go with her—” her eyes focus Gwen. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Gwen’s stomach twists. She clutches at Morgana’s face with her hands, feeling bile rise in her throat at the blankness in her eyes. “You can’t let her win, Morgana—you can’t let her take you—you know me.” Already the compulsion is growing in the back of her mind again, to bring Morgana to Aulide, to please her true lady, but the feel of Morgana’s cheeks in her palms lets her push it back. “You know me, my lady,” she pleads.

Morgana’s eyes flash gold. The candles flare brilliantly, and she staggers back, pressing her hands to her temples. “Gwen?” Morgana manages hoarsely. “What—what just—”

“It’s Aulide,” Gwen says, biting down on the inside of her lip to keep her focus through the syllables of the woman’s name. “She’s enchanting us. We need—she can’t get to you.” She groans, kicking her foot against the wall, forcing her thoughts to move through the sugary, sluggish warmth of the compulsion. “She wants you for some reason, and she can’t get you.”

She runs over to the table and lights a candle, one of the fresh beeswax ones only royalty can use, and grabs two more, thrusting them into Morgana’s hands. “We have to go,” she mutters. “We—we have to go, I think I know where to go—”

Morgana holds her hand all the way down to the kitchens, clutching her fingers tightly. Gwen shouts that Aulide needs the pantry keys, and someone presents them to her before she has the time to repeat the request. She hurries Morgana into the main one, where they keep their apples and pies and fine mead. “Hold the candle,” she pants, squeezing her eyes together in an effort to keep her mind her own long enough to finish. “Hold the—stay in there, Morgana. Until it’s safe. Hold—”

Morgana takes the candle in one trembling hand and reached for Gwen with the other, pulling her in for a brief and fierce kiss. She retreats into the dark, the candle casting her face in shades of gold, and Gwen slams the door shut, locking it firmly. She bolts for the courtyard, ignoring the shouts from behind her.

Aulide—the well. She had first met Aulide at the well. Camelot’s well is deep, so deep that her father forbade her from playing there as a child. 

“Gwen? Gwen? Is everything alright?”

She knows that face, knows that worried voice, but she cannot think of who it might be. She can only think of one thing at a time that isn’t Aulide, and that thing is getting the key to the well. She ignores the man calling to her and keeps running. The clamoring in her mind grows louder and more insistent with every step she takes away from the castle. Aulide wants her back. Aulide wants her to come to her. Aulide—

The well is five paces in front of her. She hurls herself bodily towards it, falling to her knees and forcing her fingers to fling the keys into the opening. She hears a soft splash as it lands in the water, far below. 

Her shoulders sag. The key is in the well. Someone—someone important is safe. She lets go of the thought of her, content in that. Aulide now wants her, and to Aulide she will go. She rises to her feet and glides through the hallways, each step as light and pleasant as stepping on the cloud. There is something warm all around her, pulling her into a state of sleepy pleasure, and she can’t think beyond the joy of seeing Aulide again.

She knocks on Aulide’s door, brimming with happiness. The door opens to reveal her beautiful face.

“You’re not the one I was expecting,” Aulide says warily.

She is pulled into the room. All the warmth and soothing pressure in her ears drops away, and Gwen drops to the ground and screams, clawing at the cold pain of awareness in her head.

\-----

"It's not working on her," Aulide snarls. "Why—isn’t—she—coming?"

"You've enchanted us," Gwen realizes, scrambling back against the wall. “You—you’ve enchanted the entire castle.”

“Not all of you,” Aulide growls as she paces around the room. Her eyes flare green. “Much is the pity. Your prince isn’t coming to me. He’s the one I need, but it’s not working on him. It hasn’t, all week. So now, I need something to draw him to me, but that is proving harder than I anticipated. His bride is not much his bride, so I cannot be sure that she is enough. It’s not working on his manservant, either, or else I would have taken him. And now his sister is suddenly gone from me.” She crouches down in front of Gwen. “What did you do, my lady?” she demands.

“You want—Arthur.” Gwen says. The pain is clouding her thoughts, but it is far better than the syrupy warmth of before. “You—you aren’t Dimmond’s ward at all, are you?”

“No, certainly not.” Aulide smiles, revealing a sharp row of fangs. “The good lord is dead. Long live his name, and may he burn in the deepest of the hells.”

Gwen stares at her too-sharp teeth, her light-filled eyes. Her face is still the same, too drawn, too desperate. “Aulide,” she whispers, her voice trembling fear, and Aulide’s grin grows wider.

She buckles when Gwen kicks hard at her knee. Gwen scrabbles for the knife at her waist, drawing it and lunging for her. Her entire back flares in pain as she abruptly collides with the far wall.

“Don’t make me, my lady,” Aulide says. She walks over to Gwen, kneeling down next to her. “You were kind to me, and I would hate to repay that by wronging you. You are not who I came here to harm.”

Aulide had just flung her across the room with a flick of her wrist. She has green eyes with strange pupils and a mouth full of serpents’ teeth. “Who are you?” Gwen groans, propping herself up onto her elbows. “What are you?”

“A rather rude question, wouldn’t you agree?” Aulide takes her knife from her hand, scoffs at it, and then presses it back into her fingers. “A better question is, who are you, my Lady Guinevere?”

“I am no one.”

“No one," Aulide echoes in a quiet voice. "I have seen you in Camelot. You say you are no one, and you have the bed of the king’s ward and the ear of the king’s prince. You are trying to break a marriage between royal houses as we speak. I wouldn’t be surprised if you brokered a treaty with a wave of your little knife. Why do you lie and say that you are no one?"

“Because I am,” Gwen says defiantly.

"Aye.” Aulide bares her teeth. She stands and starts to pace again. “I am no one as well. I was born here, you know. The daughter of a candler and a cook. Accepted into the castle’s service when I was nine years of age. The exact sort of no one you are.”

That can’t be. She doesn’t look a day past her eighteenth name-day, and Gwen knows all the children in Camelot who grew up with her, but Aulide—

“I came of age in the First Purge.”

The breath feels like it has been punched from Gwen’s throat. “Oh,” she whispers.

“Yes. _Oh_.” Aulide stares off into the distance, lost in memory. “I hated Camelot then. Hated a city that would see its people burn. But I hated myself more. I watched people die by the score, and I knew I would die if anyone found out that I had magic, so I forced myself to stop using it. I told no one. I stopped talking to everyone I knew. I wore cold iron bracelets and slept with a necklace of silver every single day, and it burned. I was alone.” She inhales shakily. “Keeping all of my magic inside, not using it for months and months on end—it felt like I was already burning. I wanted to dig into myself and rip it out. I wanted to peel back my skin until I was raw and all of the gold was gone. Do you know what that's like, Guinevere? To hate each and every part of yourself?"

Gwen never has, not for herself. But she doesn’t have to imagine what that is like.

"I had heard rumors of the High Priestesses who were fighting against the king in the north. They were violating their own laws and creating monsters to defeat Uther, straight out from the books of old. Creatures that could enchant men and then snap their bones in twain, born from the blood of a serpent and the blood of a girl. I wanted to fight Uther more than I wanted to breathe.”

Gwen swallows hard. If she had to spend every day of her life pressing down on a part of her soul—or if Uther had killed her father when she was fifteen and furious at everything, including herself, if there had been power to match the rage that she felt, and she had been all alone—

“So you went to them,” she says out loud.

Aulide smiles. Her eyes blaze. “I knew I was already a monster.”

Gwen can only watch as she continues to speak. “I was fifteen. It was my name-day, I remember that. They led me to the altar, and I laid my head on it gladly. I called on the wind to witness me, and it whirled like an oncoming storm and rattled the trees. It was the first time I had ever used my magic for something other than lighting a fire or cutting a leek." She takes a shuddering breath, swaying on her heels. "It felt like flying, Guinevere. It felt like I could live forever. And then the knife came, and the coldness. And I woke up to find that I could."

“And so you’re here.” Gwen picks herself off of the ground, shaking her head to clear the ringing. “Killing Arthur for the crimes of his father.”

“And so I am.” She glances down at Gwen. “I really am sorry for this, my lady.”

There is a burst of pain at the back of her head, and the world goes dark.

\-----

The room is barely large enough to pace in, but Gwen is pacing nevertheless.

She had woken up in a dingy little stone cell, alone and without the faintest idea of where Aulide had taken her. The sky outside of the tiny window is ink dark, far into the hours of the night. She has no idea how much time she lost. Every sound rings and rattles around her head, like an iron bolt thrown into a copper cauldron. She needs to warn the others. She needs to get out. She needs to get some painkillers for her hells-bound head.

The door is thrown open, and someone is pushed through. “Let go of me!” a familiar voice yelps. “Watch the head—”

Merlin lands in a heap at her feet, and the door is slammed shut and locked from the outside.

He clambers to his feet, and Gwen steadies him. "What are you doing here?" she demands, gently shaking him by the shoulders. “She said her enchantment couldn’t reach you, Merlin, you should have stayed with the others—”

"I'm here to ask Aulide for her ulcer poultice recipe. No—I'm here to get you out! Why else would I be here?" Merlin looks around their dingy little cell. "Though admittedly, this wasn't part of my plan. But we can work around it." He sobers and draws her into a hug, holding her tight. "I was so worried. She's a Lamia, Gwen, I looked it up in Gaius' book. They're powerful creatures of magic—"

"—born from the blood of a girl and the blood of a serpent. I know."

Merlin seems a little askance as he lets go of her. "How do you know that?"

"She told me." Gwen shakes her head, remembering what had happened back at the castle. "Aulide remembers the Purges, Merlin. She was human back then, a little girl with magic. She hid her magic, and it nearly killed her."

"The blood lives on? Gaius' book didn't say anything about that." Merlin looks skeptical. He starts to poke at the stone walls of the cramped room. "That doesn't matter. The bottom line is that she's a monster made with magic. Look, the Lamia were so uncontrollable that the High Priestesses stopped making them, Gwen. She’s that dangerous. And she eats people."

"It's her blood. Her memories. Surely that itself is a sort of life." Gwen peers out the little barred window. "She finally ran away and offered herself to the High Priestesses as a sacrifice, so she could rise up against the king. She’s after Arthur now."

“But Arthur hasn’t even done anything to her!”

Merlin crosses his arms, looking pained. Gwen doesn’t say anything to him. They both know how the story goes. The crimes of the father, the crimes of the son. Blood and bloodshed being passed from generation to generation as surely as the crown and sceptre.

“So—we’re the bait,” Merlin finally says.

“Yes.”

“Why not Morgana? Or Yalena?”

"I don't know where Yalena is. And as for Morgana—I locked her in a pantry," Gwen admits. "And then I threw the key into the well."

"You—why—" he splutters, gaping at her. "Why did you do that? No—how did you do that? This is Morgana we're talking about here, how in the Mother's name did you—"

"I had to do it because I realized what was happening, Merlin. The enchantment was working on people who felt attracted to Aulide. It was telling me to bring Morgana to her." Gwen sighs, knocking her head gently against a wall. “She was about to go herself, too. I didn’t want to risk the chance of her just—turning herself over. Hence the pantry. And the well.”

Merlin's eyes are wide. He is silent for a long moment before managing an awkward, “So you—”

“Yes.”

“And Morgana—”

“Yes.”

“And you two—”

“Yes, Merlin, Mother’s knees, but now isn’t the time! I’m just glad I managed to get her out, and safe. I wasn’t really thinking clearly then, but I knew—" Gwen kicks at a rock in their little cell, "—by all the gods in all the realms, if I can't save myself, I'll at least save her." She turns back to Merlin, who seems more taken aback by her vehemence than her earlier declaration, and she smiles despite the heaviness in the air. "She's in the pantry, in any case; she'll survive. She's certainly eating better than we are. We'll just get her out when we get home."

Merlin’s grin doesn't reach his eyes. _When we get home_ , she had said, not _if_ , and they both know how empty words like that can be. "How're you planning on getting her out? You threw away the key."

"Well, I was thinking you could just—" Gwen waggles her fingers.

He blanches. "You—know?" he asks.

Gwen groans. “Gods and hells, how did you even survive until now? Of course I know!” His face is miserable and more afraid than it was just moments ago, talking about people-eating monsters and near-certain death, and she jerks him into a hug and doesn’t pull away until he starts to hug her back. “I’m not angry. I certainly don’t blame you. I’m just a little frustrated. Once this has all settled down, I’m going to shout at you a lot, about caution and trust and secrets and all of those things, so brace yourself. But right now, we need to focus on getting back and warning Arthur.”

“Yes,” he manages to say, nodding. His eyes seem a little wet. “Yes. That. But—how? We’re locked in here.”

“Merlin—” Gwen sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. She makes the motion with her fingers again.

“I can’t—oh.” A smile breaks out on his face, bright even in the gloomy cell. “Right. Yeah.”

Before they can say anything further, the door opens with dusty bang, and they both skitter away like frightened horses. Merlin shoves Gwen behind him and lifts his hand, spinning gold from the air.

"Well, this is unexpected," a dry voice comes.

"Aelian?" Gwen scrambles around Merlin to get a clearer look at the woman in the doorway. The lady from Suffolk is standing there, her hand outstretched in a mirror of Merlin's. The lock lies on the ground next to her feet, gold sparks still whirling around the bolt. "You have magic?"

Aelian’s eyebrows are raised in surprise. “Hello, my lady.”

\-----

"The next thing you know, half the castle is going to come here and set up a name-day feast," Merlin grouses. He cradles a fire the size of an apple core in his cupped palm, lighting the way through the dark ruins. "The princess just walked here? Mother's toes, why? The book didn’t say anything about any of this."

"Your book was almost certainly written by a man," Aelian whispers back. She walks at the rear of their little group, her eyes tracking the shadows which flicker around them. “Need I remind you that Gwen and Morgana both felt it? I did too, before my personal wards went up. Which is why my lady is now wandering around this abandoned castle, at the mercy of an immortal being born from the sacrifice of an angry teenage girl.” Her whisper has crescendoed to a furious hiss. “Now keep your voice down.”

Gwen picks her way through the stones quietly between them, holding her fabric knife in one hand. The ruins are still, silent save for the padding of their feet on the old stone and the occasional tapping of water dripping from the ceiling into the pools on the floor.

And there are footsteps. Faint, but present.

"Someone's in that hallway," she says under her breath, pointing to a side corridor that ended in gloomy darkness.

Merlin and Aelian take a stance in front of her, casting a dim glow with the sparks in their hands. It is still too dark to make out a face, but the light reflects off the fine silver embroidery of a tunic, stars emblazoned on a field of blue so dark Gwen can barely discern it from the black—

" _Yalena_." Aelian runs into the dark of the corridor. She throws her hands out, and a soft glow breaks along the walls, washing over the slack and empty face of the Fenlands princess.

"Princess?" Aelian asks, grasping her upper arms. Her voice is soft, but not so soft that it hides her fear when she guides Yalena's face to hers. "Yalena? Are you there, Yal?"

The princess' eyes are fixed on the wall behind them, blank and unknowing. "It's the Lamia," Merlin says in a low voice. "Her influence here must be stronger than it was at the castle."

Aelian closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, they are gold. "Wake up, Princess," she whispers. Her words hang in the air like fireflies. She kisses her lightly on the lips, and Yalena's blank eyes glitter for a moment in the dark before opening wide.

Her hand shoots to her sword. Aelian catches her wrist and holds it tightly. "It's okay," she breathes, steadying Yalena's shoulder as the princess staggers back, registering the ruins around her. "It's okay. I've got you, Yal. I'm here."

"What—" Yalena focuses on Aelian, and she calms. "—where—?"

"Ruins about two hours' ride from the castle," Aelian murmurs, stroking her hair soothingly. "We foiled an assassination attempt meant for the prince. You're safe now—we just need to get back to Camelot."

“Aelian,” Yalena repeats, as if it were the only thing she could say. She cranes her head around, looking the warm gold all around them, and then starts when she sees Merlin and Gwen. A little hitched sound is punched from the back of her throat, a gasp half-lost in sheer terror. “No.” She pulls Aelian away from Merlin, shielding him with her body. “No, Aelian, no— _no_ —”

“Yal. It’s okay.” Aelian shushes her, kissing her forehead. “He has magic, too. They’re not going to turn me in. They won’t take me away from you.”

They hold each other in the light, swaying in place. Gwen clears her throat, stepping forward to remind them that they still have to leave the ruins and warn the castle, but Merlin stops her with a hand to her shoulder. He smiles, a little sheepishly.

Maybe he’s right, that they deserve a little space for their small victory. In that spirit, Gwen leans over and whispers into his ear, “I told you so.”

A voice calls out from behind them, "I was wondering where you had gotten to."

Alas, Merlin was not right.

Yalena whirls around and draws her sword, quicker than the eye can blink. "You," she hisses at the sight of Aulide. She points the blade at her, and her hand does not waver. "You're the one who brought us here."

Aulide laughs. Torches spring to life on the walls with a click of her fingers, tinged with ghostly hues. "I am rather sorry about that, my lady. But Arthur wasn't coming to me through the compulsion, and I wanted to present him with a variety of bait. You’ll have to endure my hospitality a little longer." Her eyes are harsh and alight. "Whatever you're thinking about doing with that sword of yours, I would advise against it. I'd have to smash your head against the wall, and then your mage would kill herself trying to avenge you."

Yalena sneers at Aulide. She shifts her weight to her back leg, tilting her sword in preparation for a mighty forward swing, and Aelian's hand clamps down on her shoulder from behind. 

"Don't you dare make me mourn you," she snarls.

"Wise words, mage." Aulide raises an eyebrow. "You should all listen to her."

Merlin nudges his shoulder against Gwen. She doesn't look at him, but she still can see the tilt of his head in Aulide's direction. She nods once, turning the movement of it into a cautious step out from behind Yalena's figure.

"Lady Aulide, you must listen to me." Gwen raises her voice. "I know you are angry and embittered, and you have every right to want vengeance against Uther." She brings her hand to her chest. Behind her, she hears Merlin shifting his feet. "You are not alone in hating the king. Far from it. He killed my father, on false accusations of witchcraft. He made me an orphan for the sake of his unheeding pride. I know what it is like, to hate Uther. But to kill the son for the crimes of his father—that is not the way to justice." She swallows, shaking her head slightly. “It’s only the trap of fate.”

Aulide glides closer to her on liquid steps. "I have spent the last twenty years dreaming of what this would feel like." She thrusts her face next to Gwen's. From so small a distance, Gwen can see the bags beneath her eyes, the pallor lent by sleepless nights. Her gaze is green and glittering. "Do you think you can so easily talk me out the ambitions that have kept me alive, Lady Guinevere?"

"No," Gwen murmurs. She cocks her head to one side, feeling a humming in the air. "Such an endeavor is never easy."

She barely has the time to pull Aelian and Yalena out of the way before gold fire floods the corridor, hot enough to melt iron, and her ears are filled with ringing words she does not understand.

Aulide howls like a hundred crows setting off to the sky, a hundred swords being tempered. "You," she screams, stumbling away from the roaring flames. "Prince's man—who are you?"

Merlin doesn't answer. He kneels and slams his hand into the ground, and the stone splits with a shuddering moan, opening into sprawling darkness. Aulide leaps away, clinging to the wall, and the ground beneath their feet rumbles its displeasure at her escape. Merlin clenches his raised hand into a first, and the wind picks up at his shouted command, whipping the dust into an stinging storm. The air around him is alive with lightning, pulsing with a drunken heartbeat, and Gwen can feel the crackle of it on her skin like the bite of a needle. 

Someone gasps. It might have been her. Aelian and Yalena are no less affected. The princess is pressing herself back into the wall, shielding herself from the storm, and Aelian's hand is pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide and fearful in the reflected light.

Merlin speaks again, and the sound makes her ears feel as though they are bleeding.

The wind snaps, harsh as a whip. Aulide shrieks in pain. She throws her hand up, clawing through the wind. Merlin stumbles back ten paces, battered about by an unseen current, and he braces himself against a rock and rips at the air with his other hand. Aulide flies backwards in the air, her back colliding with the end of the corridor with a loud _crack_. She does not get up.

Merlin advances with both his hands outstretched. The earth shudders with his every step, and fire grows between his palms, brighter than Gwen's eyes can withstand. "No," she finds herself whispering. "Merlin—no—"

He doesn't hear her, or maybe he cannot understand her just as she cannot comprehend him. His strides echo with the beat of a hammer on hot iron. Gwen pulls herself to her feet, pushing through the swirling winds until she finally reaches him. Touching him is like reaching into a forge.

“Don’t kill her!” she screams, pulling at his arm.

Merlin stills. He stares at her, and his eyes are gold from side to side. Gwen bears the burn of them without looking away. She thinks of looking into Morgana's eyes after her nightmares, the raging light within them, and Aulide's eyes, blazing with an anger unslaked. Little by little, the gold fades. The wind subsides. Merlin blinks, as though coming out of sleep, and the white-hot flame flows into his hand like a river to the sea.

Gwen sags in relief, holding tightly onto Merlin's arm. She hears Yalena and Aelian clambering to their feet, picking up their weapons in the newborn stillness.

Aulide claws herself upright and then collapses the moment after. She spits out blood the color of tar and grins at the sight of Gwen, still holding her little knife in her free hand. "My lady Guinevere. Once again, you prove your own power." Her coughing brings up more of the dark blood. "Who are you, Prince's man?" she asks, glaring up at Merlin. Her black-stained teeth are bared in a smile. It is all the more ferocious from the tinge of fear Gwen can see.

Merlin shrugs. His eyes are no longer golden. "Those with magic know me by Emrys," he says. His cadence has returned the one Gwen knows from their years of friendship, but his voice still contains an echo of lightning, of storm.

Aulide starts laughing through her hacking coughs. "Emrys. Prince's man, you—are Emrys. Of course you are. Emrys, in Uther's court, serving Uther's son." She falls silent, something that isn’t anger flickering across her face. “I thought you were supposed to save us.”

Merlin is quiet. He doesn’t defend himself against Aulide’s accusation. 

Her laugh rings out once more, rough and wet as she struggles to rise from the ground. "You'd best kill me while you still can, Emrys. I heal faster than I hurt."

Gwen tightens her grip on Merlin’s shoulder, and he looks into her eyes for a long moment. She meets them just as she had met his gold gaze. His hands drop to his side. "No," he says. "I don't think I will."

"What in the Mother's name are you on, Merlin?" Yalena loudly whispers, coming to stand next to them. "She was trying to kill us. She wants to kill your prince. She will kill him if we let her out of here."

"But that's just the thing, isn't it?" Merlin kneels down next to Aulide. "You don't want to kill Arthur. You want to make Uther pay. But would it really be making him pay, to make him hate magic more than he already does?" He pauses. "If you kill Arthur, there will be a second Purge. Those with magic will face Uther's wrath ten-fold." His eyes flash with a fraction of their previous light, but that is enough for them all to flinch back. "And you will face mine."

Aulide spits at him. "Traitor."

"Uther is but a man, Aulide." Gwen tucks her knife back into her belt and crouches next to Merlin. She is—young, she realizes with a start. It had been her fifteenth name-day when she laid her head on the altar and called on the winds of war, and she looks fifteen now, with her snarling, incandescent defiance. "He will die, as all men die, and his ways will fall with him. You've waited twenty years for your revenge. You can wait a little more for victory."

"You think his death counts as victory?" Aulide growls. Her face contorts. "It is not enough for the butcher to die, Guinevere. I want him to hurt. I want him to suffer."

Aelian slowly comes to sit next to the three of them, drawing Yalena down with her. The princess still has her sword unsheathed in her hands, but she does not move to use it. "You have spent the last fortnight in Uther's court, Aulide," Aelian says with something approaching gentleness. "You know the kind of king he is now. Do not vindicate his prejudices." Her voice hardens. "Let him live without glory and die without fanfare. Let his son live long enough to realize that his father is ignoble. That is the greatest humility a king like him will ever know."

"You speak so well, mage. You should become a philosopher." Aulide licks the blood off of her teeth, her chest heaving. "How do you know the prince won't follow in his father's footsteps? Arthur is Uther's son. He grew up in Uther's rule and watched at his side as we were burnt."

"He isn't his father," Merlin declares immediately. "Of that I am certain."

She laughs again, wheezing thickly at the end as black bubbles up from her mouth. Gwen reaches to help ease her up, and Aulide slaps her hand away. "I see then. Not a traitor, but a lover, with a lover's eyes."

"Lover or not, I am still Emrys. I am bound to safeguard magic, no matter what man I serve." Merlins lets flecks of gold back into his eyes, but they are dimmer now, less sharp-edged. "Arthur's reign will see us free. Of that I promise you."

"Very well." Her hand abruptly clamps down on Merlin's, her nails digging hard enough into his palm to draw blood. She pushes herself up, forcing red to run from the cuts. "Swear on it, Emrys. Swear that you will work for the liberty of magical kin in the reign of Uther's son, even unto your death."

Merlin doesn't try to move his hand away. "Swear that you will bring no harm to Camelot," he counters. "Nor to her prince, nor to her allies."

Aulide smiles, and for the first time, for all the unveiled resentment in it, it reaches her eyes. "That's your due as the victor, isn't it?" Green flashes in her gaze, a wash of bitter spring. "I do so swear. On your blood, Emrys, and no less."

"Then I swear as well," Merlin says, and his words resound in the air with unseen gold, for all that they can be understood.

"If you break your oath, I will come find you." Aulide wipes the black blood from her chin. "No contract will bind me. And Emrys or not, I will tear the raw heart from your chest."

She lets go of his hand, and Merlin gingerly traces the marks on his skin. "My lady," he tells her, "I have no doubt of that."

\-----

Dawn is breaking over the castle when the four of them make their way back to Camelot.

"I don’t know why I didn’t sense it," Aelian is saying as they walk along the edge of the main road. "People usually have to use runestones to even summon lightning, to say nothing of moving the earth. I'd have to store power for half a year to do a quarter of what you did." She glances at Merlin, looking caught between bemusement and admiration. "You probably have more raw power than any sorcerer I've met."

"And not a whit of common sense, despite that," Gwen mutters pointedly.

“I do have common sense!” Merlin protests. All the gravitas and grandeur of the sorcerer in the ruins has vanished. Gwen doesn’t know whether or not to be glad of it. “And subtlety. Loads of subtlety.”

She glares at him. “We haven’t even brought your lack of that up, but I can add it to the list, if you’d like?”

Yalena laughs. She and Aelian are walking side-by-side. They had been holding hands until the castle came into view. “I’m sure you’re plenty subtle, Merlin. Gwen is just very observant.”

“See? The princess agrees with me. And I am. Outside of you all—and Gaius—and Lancelot—and my mother, no one knows about my magic.”

Aelian’s eyebrows rise. “I thought you would’ve told the prince by now.”

“Wait.” Yalena pauses mid-step. “You haven’t told him about your magic? Why?”

“Because he’s Uther’s son!” 

“You just swore a blood oath saying otherwise,” Gwen interjects. “I might not have read any books on magic or brewed a potion in my life, but even I can tell that you believed every word of what you said to Aulide.”

Merlin frowns, crossing his arms. “I can’t tell him. I just can’t. You all wouldn’t understand.”

Yalena and Aelian look at each other, then at Gwen. She gestures hopelessly at Merlin’s back. Far be it from her to point out the parallels between all of them. Yalena is the one to start speaking—ever the knight, to jump in where saints and gods fear to tread. “I don’t think he could ever resent you for long, you know,” she says in a delicate tone. “You can trust him to—”

She lets her words fall away at the sight of a blond man riding down the road alone.

Gwen leans towards Merlin. “We’re not done here,” she says pointedly, and then steps back, letting him run up the road to meet with Arthur.

They are welcomed back into castle with fanfare. Merlin all but shoves Yalena and Aelian to the forefront of their little group, making the princess claim all the credit for their rescue and the successful defeat of the Lamia. They assure the king of the creature’s death. Gwen pulls Merlin by the sleeve into the kitchens to release Morgana from the pantry. She looks up at them when the door opens, gnawing worriedly through an apple, and Gwen rushes at her so quickly that she knocks over the bucket Morgana had been using as a stool. 

The two of them topple onto the floor, and they lie there, tangled together on the ground. “My hero,” Morgana whispers into her hair, and Gwen hangs on even tighter.

Gwen sleeps half the day away in Morgana’s bed. She awakens in the mid-afternoon and drowsily drags herself out of of the feather-soft sheets. Her head feels far better that it did a day ago, but a visit to Gaius still sounds appealing. She pads out the door, fighting the urge to pick at the scabs on her hands. There’s some ointment, somewhere, from the last time she hurt her hands in the forge, that could help with the itching.

There is a handkerchief on her bedside table.

Gwen picks it up, feeling a smile bloom across her face. Her heart tugs at the space her chest as she examines it—a yellow silk fabric, with a nearly painfully uneven warp pattern. The border is sewn with clumsy clusters of violets. She presses it to her face, and it smells of lavender and peaches. 

How many of the knights in the kingdom know that their campaigns hang by the thread strung through the eye of a seamstress' needle? That they would be cut raw by their own armor if it weren't for the linen and wool beneath the metal, that their swords were held to their bodies with the stitching on their belts, that the finery of their emblazoned surcoats was nothing without the fine threads running along the seams? Not many.

How many of the nobles in the kingdom know that their love hangs by the same? Even fewer.

She holds the little square of fabric to her chest, feeling warm all over.

\-----

Gwen gives Merlin a day after their return before she goes to find him. He is gathering the prince’s lunch in the kitchens, and right as he finishes pouring the ale, she drags him, tray and all, into one of the castle's pantries. 

"We need to talk," she tells him, shutting the door. "About Morgana."

He glances at the barrels of apples and casks of wine stacked around the perimeter of the room. "Isn't this where you locked her up when Aulide was here?" He darts over to a barrel and takes one of the fruits, biting into it crisply. "These are really good. I normally never get within spitting distance of an apple unless it's rotten and being lobbed at my face by some—"

"Merlin." Gwen crosses her arms.

He doesn't look at her. "No, Gwen."

“It has to be you. I know other magic-users in the castle, but their powers don't hold a candle to hers, and they've never had to suppress their abilities. You're the only one who has any idea of what she's going through."

"She's Uther's ward, Gwen, and I'm a servant who cleans his stables! Who do you think burns, if we get caught? Who's gonna—"

"You of all people want me to believe that you’re worried about getting caught? Mother’s sake, I’ve known about your magic since Lancelot came! You burst through doorways like a drunken ox and cast enchantments over Arthur's armor from a full twenty paces away in the middle of the day—" Gwen breaks off, her eyes narrowing. "There's something you're not telling me."

“Of course there is. You can’t know everything.” He looks unhappy, and a little angry. “Some things—you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Is this like how you can’t tell Arthur about your magic? Or a different sort of _I can’t_?”

“Both. Maybe.” Merlin hesitates. “There’s a prophecy.”

Of course there is. “Does it say anything about Morgana?”

Merlin only shakes his head. “I can’t, Gwen. I can’t—you don’t want to hear it.”

Gwen rubs her hand over her eyes. A heavy feeling settles in the pit of her stomach, somewhere between fear and resignation. Aulide, fifteen and already thinking she was damned. Morgana, clawing at her hair and unable to keep from hating herself. A woman, angry and scared and alone. That is all it takes to be a monster in a prophecy. “You have Gaius. You have Lance. You have books that tell you what to do and a—a whole damned prophecy that says you'll survive long enough to be free," Gwen hisses through her teeth. "She has known nothing of those comforts. Tell her."

He turns away from her, his face closed and unreadable. His knuckles are white where they grasp the tray.

"You need to tell her that she isn't alone."

He doesn't respond.

"You need to tell her," Gwen repeats. She doesn't say anything else as she leaves.

\-----

Her father once told her a story, when she was young and the icy winds howled like iron being struck. It had been a particularly hard winter in Camelot, but she was a proud little girl who wanted both to show off the embroidery of her new dress and to prove that she could conquer the cold. Her father chased her around their house, trying to get her to don her cloak, and she ran as fast as her stocky child’s legs could carry her, which was not awfully fast. When at last he bundled her up in her thick winter clothes, she pouted and cried.

 _Have you ever heard the story of the cold man and the hunter, my lady_? he asked her, and she stopped sniffling long enough to shake her head. He told her then of a cold man who needed to go to the market in winter, and a hunter who needed something to eat. The man had put on all the shifts he wears to bed, and all the shirts his wife spun for him, and all the overtunics she sewed for him, and all the cloaks spun from the wool of the sheep he owned. When he ventured out into the cold, he was wearing so many things that in the snow, he looked like a bear, or a boar, and the hungry hunter saw him through the trees and released his arrow.

It had been that man’s fate to die on the road that day, he told her. But because he had donned so many layers to venture into the cold, his fate had changed. The arrow went through all of his cloaks and all of his overtunics, and all of his shirts and shifts—save one. One shift remained unpierced, and the arrow never even touched his skin. _A cloak is a powerful thing, my lady,_ her father said, and she forgot her ire and ran out into the snow gleefully, pretending that her cloak also had the power to turn aside arrows of destiny.

Shirts and shifts and tunics and cloaks. Such common, small things.

"Don't think you're off the hook, Gwen," Isabella says, shaking her spindle at her. They are spinning today, making light linen and silk thread for the hot late summer ahead. Mary and Isabella had promised to be nice to her for three days after Aulide took her hostage, and they followed their promise to the letter and no more. "We see the kerchief. You'd never sew like that."

Mary wolf-whistles, smirking unrepentantly at Gwen's half-hearted smack to her shoulder. "It's about damn time."

"By the Lady Morgana's own hands, no less," Letitia says. "I can't remember the last time she gave a token so personal." She squints at the border. “Her hand might be getting better—no, I’m being too generous. Her hand might be getting less worse.”

"I’ve been trying to teach her a little more.” Gwen strokes her finger along the edge of the fabric square. Morgana has wanted for a long time to spell her kirtles to protect from weaponry, and she'd heard that there is no better way to set protective enchantments than to weave them with thread, but her stitches and weaving are still too rough. The kerchief might stop a blade to Gwen's heart, if she's lucky, but it mostly just smells of lavender—and that is more than enough for her. “The one thing I can’t wrap my head around is how in the hells she hid a handloom from me in her chambers.”

Letitia would be able to teach her more. One day, Gwen will bring her here.

There is a soft knock on the door to their room. “Merlin!” Isabelle exclaims, bouncing on her heels and opening the door for him with a flourish. “Are you finally here to help us spin? I’ve been asking for ages.”

“No, Bella, not today,” he says, grinning at her briefly. His face falls when he meets Gwen’s gaze. “I’m—here for Gwen, actually, if you can spare her for a bit.”

“Oh.” Isabella nods knowingly. “Royal business. I get it.”

“Yeah, Bella.” Merlin swallows audibly. “Royal business.”

Gwen follows him out of the room. He guides her over to an alcove and sits down, folding himself as small as he can.

“Do you really want to know?” he asks in a small voice.

Gwen nods. “I do.”

His face is somber and drawn. Sparks dance around him as he tells her Arthur's destiny, and Morgana's, and her own, and his own, and Gwen listens to him as he describes how the golden age of magic will have the bloodiest dawn the world has ever seen, how Morgana will become a traitor and Arthur will die and she herself will grow grief-stricken and cold, how he’ll end up taking so many lives that he will slowly lose count, and how they’ll all one day be killers, with the sort of bloodshed that lingers for generations and condemns children to their graves for the crimes of their forebears, and she looks him in his gold-scattered eyes and says, " _I don't care._ "

He stares at her, trembling. She meets his gaze steadily. "Damn destiny. Damn prophecy.” She enunciates her every word and then repeats in a voice that is softer but no less fierce, “I don't care.”

There is a beat of silence, and then he crumples into her, his head falling on her shoulder. "Thank you, Gwen," he mutters thickly. 

She holds him close as he begins to cry.

\-----

Gwen is half-asleep in their bed by the time Morgana comes back into her rooms. She stirs at the rustling of skirts and looks up to see a barely-banked wildness roiling in her lady’s eyes. Morgana sits down heavily on the bed. Her hands, when Gwen takes them, are cold and shaky. 

"He told you?" Gwen asks. She levers herself from the soft pillows, the sheets pooling around her waist. 

Morgana nods once. 

“Were you angry?”

“Very.”

“And now?”

She works her jaw in silence for a long time. “I don’t know.”

Gwen shifts closer, leaning against Morgana’s back and propping her chin on her shoulder. Morgana shakes beneath her, like a tree’s leaves in a sudden gale. “You know his reasons for secrecy,” she murmurs. “They are much the same as yours.”

"So did he not trust me?” Morgana snaps, sharp as a blade. She subsides. The trembling in her shoulders grows greater, and Gwen wraps her arms around her waist and holds her together. “He—he also told me that I would betray Camelot.” Morgana’s voice teeters on the edge of breaking. “That I would destroy all of us in my rage."

Morgana’s hair is soft on her cheek, where Gwen rests her head against the back of her neck. “And will you?” Gwen asks.

She can feel Morgana pressing her hands to her mouth as she shakes her head. “I—I don’t know. Gwen.” She turns her face so she can look at Gwen, and the candles shine in the wetness of her eyes. “I don’t want to. I think—I fear—it might have already happened, but I don’t want to.”

“That’s all that matters, then.” 

Gwen will ask her about the past another time. 

“Would you try to stop me?” Morgana asks in a choked voice. One hand comes up to squeeze at Gwen’s fingers where they are locked around her waist.

“I would.” Gwen does not deny it. Camelot is her kingdom. It always will be. “And I would try to bring you back every single day, and I would mourn you every night. And I would never blame you. Camelot betrayed you first," she says softly. “I—rather hope that the castle will still be standing tomorrow, you know, but I will never begrudge you your anger.”

"No.” Morgana’s voice cracks. Slowly, hesitantly, her hands rise to cradle Gwen’s face. Her words tremble. “Uther betrayed me. But Uther is not Camelot." Her hands shake where they stroke Gwen’s cheek. "You— _you_ are. You—Merlin—everyone else Uther has wronged. You are the honor in this kingdom. And I will not betray you."

Gwen settles her hands over Morgana’s and traces small circles on her wrists. She doesn’t ask her for a promise. “This kingdom is yours, as well.” She turns her head and presses her lips to Morgana’s palm. “And I would see it honor you.” 

She untangles herself from the sheets and unlaces Morgana’s kirtle and shift, carefully setting them aside, and braids her hair so it would not tangle in the night. They slide into bed together, pressed skin to skin. Morgana extinguishes the candles with an exhaled word, and they are plunged into a warm, close dark. 

“What will you do now?” Gwen asks into the crown of Morgana’s head.

“There is a Druid camp where I can learn to control my magic.” She feels Morgana’s words against her neck more than she can hear them. “But—it’s far, Gwen. And I could be away for months.”

“Then think about it. Go, if you want to,” Gwen says immediately. She props herself up over Morgana, finding her her way by touch. “And when you have learned what you needed to, you come back to Camelot.” She kisses Morgana’s face, tracing its familiar planes and valleys with her fingertips. “And to me.”

She feels Morgana smile beneath her hand. “I swear to it, my lady.”

Gwen lays one last kiss onto her brow. “I will hold you to your word.”

She settles back down into the bed, curling into Morgana’s side. A sliver of the moon peers through their window, hanging in the sky like a great winking eye, and Gwen has drifted into a doze when Morgana speaks again.

“There was one thing Merlin and I could agree on tonight. We're going to tell Arthur tomorrow. Together."

\-----

It comes as no surprise, when the prince finds her in a corridor the next afternoon and requests her presence for a leisurely walk. They go out into the meadow where she usually sits with Morgana and settle down beneath the same grand tree. Arthur stares into the empty distance, his jaw clenched tight, and he doesn’t say anything for a long, long time. 

"Did you know?" he asks at last, breaking the calm silence of the meadow.

"About what?" she asks him in return.

"Merlin. Morgana. Magic. Any of it."

Gwen plucks a handful of clovers and starts to braid them together. "I did," she says. A crown of flowers is made from the same knots which hold a vambrace in place, and her fingers are used enough to the motion of both that she can weave the clovers together while looking Arthur in the eyes. "I knew about Morgana's magic from the beginning, when her nightmares started to become fearful. I've had suspicions about Merlin's magic since Lancelot came."

"You never told me."

"Neither were my secret to tell."

She had once known an impetuous boy that would have threatened her with the king's justice for keeping the secrets of sorcerers. Now, she watches as Arthur picks a flower, worrying at the sap-green stem with his nails. "Can I still trust them?" he asks in a small voice, and Gwen is reminded with a start that he is younger than her, for all the power he commands.

"Merlin—would walk through fire for you. Without being asked. You don't need me to tell you that. And you've known Morgana since you were both little. Her magic doesn't change the fact that she's your sister, Arthur. You know her."

"Merlin said she would turn against us."

"And knowing what you do now—why would she not?"

Arthur doesn't answer. She continues to braid. 

“What do I do?” he asks her. His voice is plaintive. “How do I keep her—what can I even do?”

“She wants a place here. You can give her that, in time.”

“When we were younger—” Arthur draws his hand across his face. “She used to play at being councilor. She drove Gaius up the walls because she would scribble over all of the good vellum he used for his records.” He looks up at Gwen. “Can it really be so simple as giving her a piece of parchment and some ink?”

Wasn’t that how all this was started? With ink on paper, that turned to blood on the land? “What else do you think she wants, Arthur? Gold? Dresses? A new cloak? What else could she want from Camelot?”

“ _I don’t know_ ,” Arthur bursts out. “I don’t know what they want from Camelot. I don’t know why Morgana hasn’t snapped and killed me and my father in our sleep. I don’t understand why they're still here, Gwen. They've watched me—" he breaks off, letting the clover fall from his fingers. "How can they still—"

"They love you," Gwen says simply. "They love you enough to wait for you. Just as you love them enough to challenge your father's laws."

Arthur is silent, his face downcast. Gwen doesn't press him for a reply. 

"My father once told me that I would be the bane of the final witches in Albion.” His words are soft and distant. "That it would be my destiny as king."

"And Merlin told you that it is your destiny to usher in a new golden age of magic. If you believe in destiny, you only need to pick one."

He lifts his eyes to meet hers. "When I am king, they will never live in fear again."

The prince is brilliant in the light, the conviction carved into his face absolute and unyielding. Gwen bows her head, brimming with pride.

“I am glad to hear that, my lord.”

Arthur laughs suddenly. “If I did anything to them, I daresay Camelot would be plunged into war. Do you know that Yalena and her lady waited outside my door when Merlin and Morgana went in to talk to me? They were fully prepared to take my head off if I lifted a hand to either Merlin or Morgana.” He glances at Gwen. “It’s the Lady Aelian, isn’t? Yalena’s lover.”

Gwen huffs out a small chuckle. “I knew you would catch on eventually.”

“And she is—” Arthur breaks off, seeming uneasy. “She doesn’t want to stay here,” he says carefully.

“No. She does not.”

He turns to her, brushing bits of clover off of his tunic. “I think I know how to break the betrothal once and for all. Going through Father hasn’t gotten me anywhere. He won’t be happy, but—” Arthur smiles wryly. “That is starting to matter less and less.”

He has grown so much in the last year alone. Gwen kisses him on the brow. “You are doing the right thing, Arthur,” she assures him.

"I knew, with Yalena," he admits. "It was easy to be her friend, and deep down, I knew she would never want me. It all became—clearer, with her." He hesitates. "Gwen. I—I don't think I will ever marry a wife in passion," he says in a rush. "My devotion lies elsewhere, I grow more certain of that every day. But I would rather Camelot have a queen I already know and cherish than someone I do not know well.” His voice is achingly earnest. “And Morgana told me there would be no better queen than you.”

“There will be better queens,” she says, waving his words aside. “Queens who have royal blood, and who won’t give you hell from your father and his councilors—”

"But no still no better. Damn it all, I'll never hear the end of it if she gets wind of me saying this, but—Morgana is right." He takes a deep breath and reaches for her hands, clasping them gently between his. "Guinevere. My lady. I only ask—that when the time comes, you still consider honoring this kingdom. As her queen."

He is still as formal as he was all those months ago, but more sincere, more grateful, and it is the kingdom’s queen he wishes her to be, not his. She smiles and plunks her half-finished clover crown on his head. "When the time comes, should both you and I still wish it," she says fondly. "Then, I will consider your offer."

\-----

One of the knights—maybe Lance, Gwen thinks, he's a very good liar for such a good man, or maybe Leon, whose loyalty to Arthur is greater than his loyalty to his king's interests—starts a rumor that the prince feels resentful of his future wife's prowess in the martial arena. Within the week, the rumor has spread throughout the castle, fragmenting into stories which each grow to the size of giants until they reach the ears of the king's advisors. Gwen hears of nothing save for it. Arthur is too afraid of his bride to take up his quarrel with her. No, Arthur and his bride are already fighting—no, Arthur and his bride have already fought, and she trounced him so thoroughly that he'll never show his face on the battlefield again, and the words he used to denounce her victory were not savory.

"I told him to pick something that wouldn't give him hell, but he didn't listen," Morgana says. She sounds almost admiring. "He just went on and on about how he needed to make sure her reputation's survival. As if any pitiful little story can hurt her," she scoffs.

"Careful, my lady," Gwen says, hiding her smile behind her hand. "You sound like you're in love."

"But alas, you know it is not to be." Morgana sighs dramatically, pressing her hand to her chest. She presses her lips to Gwen's cheek and gives her a smaller, truer smile. "Another lady already has my heart."

Gwen's heart aches from her fondness. "You're silly," she whispers, unable to contain her grin. She tugs on Morgana’s hand, kissing her knuckles lightly. “Now we have to hurry, or else we’ll be late.”

The council meeting today was intended to be a private meeting, but even Uther can no longer indulge in that illusion. Alcman and Yalena are waiting outside the council chambers. Alcman’s jaw is set in a hard line, but Yalena looks caught between disbelief and a furious hope. Most of the Fenlands delegation is there, surrounding their princess in a display of loyalty. Aelian stands at their back of their group, her face turned steadfastly from the princess at Alcman’s side. Knights and lords and ladies mill around the audience entrance, waiting for the doors to open to the drama. Merlin stands next to Arthur, muttering worriedly into his ear. They stand close enough that their hands brush together with every movement.

Morgana weaves through the crowd, clearing a space for Gwen to follow her. They manage to grab seats on a bench at the very front of the section designated for the onlookers. The council table is a long and grand, carved out of the heart of oak trees. Uther is seated at its very head, surrounded by his most trusted advisors, proud and distant as a statue of an old god. Today, Alcman sits at his right, with Yalena standing behind him. Arthur stands behind Uther, staring at nothing with his hands clasped behind his back. Both the prince and the princess are wearing their kingdom’s colors, blue and red bright as fresh paint against the rich and somber velvets of the council body.

The chime of a bell cuts through the mutters filling the hall. The meeting is called to order.

“Your majesty, King Alcman,” a councilor starts, “we have to start by extending our apologies to you. The prince is a young, high spirited man, and you cannot—”

“You apologize to me and not my daughter?” Alcman snaps, cutting across him.

The other man looks taken aback. “Ah—well—it’s you who are seated at the table—”

He trails off. Alcman turns his stare to the man sitting at his right. He doesn’t say a word. A murmur rises as the councilor slowly, reluctantly shifts down one seat, leaving the chair next to the Fenlands king empty. Yalena eases herself into the council seat, clasping her hands on the table and steeling her face into neutrality. Alcman gives her a small smile, and she nods at him. He turns back to Uther’s councilor, his face blank.

The man who had first spoken is speechless, spluttering. Another councilor jumps in. “Our apologies, Princess Yalena.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she replies, her resonant voice carefully toneless.

“As the Lord Cedric was saying, the prince is young. He speaks without thinking. Allow him his pride; you know how young men are, my lady.”

Yalena’s lips twitch ever so slightly. Gwen can hear her retort in her mind— _do I, my lord?_

“Alcman,” Uther says. He hasn’t acknowledged Yalena’s presence at the table. “Let us not indulge in this display any longer. We cannot let the feelings of children interfere with the affairs of kingdoms. The marriage will go on.”

“No, Uther.” Alcman’s voice is quiet. “I do not think it will.” He turns to study Arthur, still at Uther’s shoulder, silent as stone. “Do you take back what you said, Prince?”

Arthur looks at him, then over at Yalena. “No, my lord,” he says.

Uther inhales sharply. “Camelot is your kingdom, Arthur,” he snaps. "You cannot let anything harm her, much less your pride." Gwen has to keep herself from baring her teeth at the king, that he of all people can speak of pride.

Arthur doesn’t flinch. “It wasn’t pride, Father.”

“What do you call it, then?”

He stares into the audience searching for something. Gwen hears Aelian gasp. A hint of a smile graces Arthur’s face before he schools it back into blankness. “Not pride,” he repeats resolutely.

Alcman stills, his eyes darting between his daughter and Arthur. “Prince Arthur—” he starts, his tone shifting into something softer.

“This is foolishness,” Uther declares, raising his voice until it re-echoes around the hall. “And I will not hear any more. Arthur, you will marry the girl.”

“Father—” he starts. He takes a deep breath and then steps closer to the table, setting his hand on the finely carved grain of the wood. “Sire. Please listen. Camelot would benefit greatly from trading our timber and wool and wheat with the Fenlands. We would benefit even more if we could use her rivers to grant our barges passage to the sea. But I need not be what you trade, to give us that route.” Arthur eyes flick around the table, staring each councilor in the face. He ends by holding Alcman’s gaze. “My lord Alcman, I wish for there to be friendship between our kingdoms. There is much Camelot can give you in return for passage.”

Alcman’s hesitation is as loud as a shout. “You speak of friendship, my prince, and your words are wise. But our kingdoms are on par with each other in terms of riches, and it is the word of a kin-alliance with Camelot that we hoped to secure through this treaty. Not all wealth is physical, Arthur.” He looks at him with sympathy, but the tight line of his mouth does not break. “And not all of it is as easy to gain as gold and timber.”

“But we do have silk, your majesty.”

Every head in the room swivels towards the source of the voice. Uther’s lips thin in displeasure. “What are you doing, Morgana?” he hisses.

Morgana rises from her seat in the back of the chamber, her skirts falling elegantly to the ground. “Camelot is blessed with a yearly share of raw silk from Brittany,” she continues, ignoring Uther. “The House of Pendragon has long been allied with the House of de Bois, who hold the seat in Domnonée. They have the largest silk farms in the continent, outside of Venice and Constantinople, and Camelot is sent their bounty yearly. This was the request of the Queen Ygraine, long may her name be remembered. They still honor it.”

“No one under my command is producing _silk_ yearly,” Uther declares with a scoff. “I would know if they were.”

Camelot’s king looks furious—at the mention of Arthur’s mother, at Morgana’s presumptuousness, at his loss of control, Gwen cannot decide. Yalena’s eyes are wide and hopeful, and Alcman leans forward, clasping his hands on the table. He seems impressed, and intrigued.

“Weaving is women’s work, my king. Why should you pay it heed?” Morgana’s smile is as sharp as a blade. She presses on. “My household—” her hand falls onto Gwen’s shoulder, and Gwen sits taller, a matching smile inexorably growing on her face, “—spins and weaves with it. Our castle’s treasuries are full of it. Quantity is sometimes an advantage; I do not need to remind you that silk is worth more than its weight in gold.” Morgana tilts her chin up, proud and unrelenting. “And you say rightly that not all wealth is physical. Silk is thrice as precious as its cost, in the view of dignitaries and kings.”

“So it is,” Alcman says, nodding slowly. “And how much of that are you willing to grant to us, to allow Camelot’s ships and soldiers through our rivers?”

“We produce one hundred and sixty-five ells per annum, of which my household will give you seventy.”

The room is silent. Alcman and Yalena look stunned.

Morgana smooths her hands over her skirt, tracing lightly along the fineries Gwen wove into the shining fabric. “Seventy ells a year. That is enough for kirtles and robes a plenty, for all your altarcloths. Enough to give to dignitaries so they remember your kingdom as a seat of glory. To trade for allies should war come to you.” She steps from the audience, descending into the larger hall. “To make you great in the eyes of all.”

Arthur walks to meet her at the end of the long table. He pulls out the last empty chair, and no one dares to stop her as she takes a seat. 

“What say you, my lords?” Morgana asks, spreading her hands wide.

\-----

The Fenlands delegation agrees to stay until Midsummer in the company of their new allies. Yalena trains with the knights daily, her blue and silver raiment bright as sunlight against the red of the knights’ overtunics. She is even more of a force of nature than she was before the betrothal was broken. Aelian, Merlin, and Morgana go into the meadows and forests to practice their magic, and Gwen tags along to keep watch. 

Never before has she seen magic used so freely, and so joyously. Aelian has more training than either of the others; she can make flowers grow in brilliant patterns and fruit ripen with a touch of her finger. One day they find a grove with apple trees growing wild, their branches laden with light green fruit the size of Gwen’s thumb. Aelian picks apples for all of them, and they turn red and full in her hands. Morgana plunges her hands into pools of still water, under Aelian’s instructions, and brings the future into view. They cheer her on at every small vision—the pies the baker will make in a sennight, the knight errant who will come in two days, the dinner they will eat that evening—and sit next to her when the future is fire-lit and blood-laden. Merlin’s magic is wild when he allows it to run free—he build bridges across rivers by calling up the stones to order and whips the air into a frenzy, conjuring small storms on cloudless days.

Aelian and Yalena are both there when the next attack comes on Camelot.

"How often do these things happen at your court?" Yalena pants. She crouches behind a column, holding her sword at the ready 

"These are extraordinary circumstances, my lady," Arthur calls to her from the next column over. His sword had been thrown across the courtyard in a previous skirmish, but he's gotten a pike from somewhere.

"You're a dirty liar, Arthur Pendragon," Morgana shouts from behind another column, both her knives drawn in her hands. 

Behind them, a wyvern rages in the inner courtyard, knocking over wagons and statue plinths as if they were nothing more than a child’s blocks. Unconscious knights lay strewn about the stones like toy soldiers. The double doors to the courtyard have been barred by some force they cannot counter; guards pound on the doors, but to no avail. Gwen, Merlin, and Aelian are currently huddled behind an overturned wagon, waiting for the right moment to sneak across the courtyard. Aelian shoots her and Merlin a questioning look, jerking her head back at Yalena.

 _Kind of often_ , Merlin mouths with a shake of his hand.

 _Very often_ , Gwen corrects him, grimacing, and Aelian smirks.

With a ringing word, Morgana sets her knives alight. Arthur looks delighted. Gwen resolves to lecture the both of them on caution another time. The wyvern swivels around to the side of the courtyard where Morgana is crouching, gnashing its teeth, and Merlin’s eyes widen. He gives the signal. 

The three hiding behind the columns burst out, screaming, blades flashing. Gwen dashes across the courtyard while the wyvern is distracted, leading the other two to the servants’ corridor hidden behind the tapestry. The door is still unlocked.

“Are you sure it’s just a glamor?” Merlin asks Aelian once they are safely inside.

“It has to be. A real wyvern wouldn’t be that aggressive in an urban setting; it’d be more scared than anything.” Aelian reaches the end of the corridor, entering the main hall of the castle. Knights are hurrying back and forth, shouting orders to each other. “And because it’s an illusion, the caster has to be close.” Her eyes fall on a plainly dressed man standing in an alcove. His lips are moving silently. “There.”

The sorcerer’s eyes open, glittering a soft gold. He sees them and starts to run.

“Wait.” Gwen stops Merlin before he can set off in pursuit. “The east hallway. Bring him there.”

Merlin nods. He and Aelian jog after the man, and Gwen starts hurrying in the opposite direction. The east hallway is the bane of servants in the winter. It is constantly drafty, no matter how many tapestries they layer over the walls, and they need to travel through every day to reach the nobles’ quarters on the other side of the castle. Mary spends at least a week each year sewing small patterns into the corners of the wall-hangings, trying to make them strong enough to withstand the wind.

Gwen hides in the shadows at one end of the hallway, tucking herself behind the enormous tapestry emblazoned with a dragon which covers half the north wall. She calms her harsh breathing and reaches up to gradually undo the ties and weights holding the hanging in place, watching as Merlin and Aelian chase the sorcerer into the hallway. Once they are clear from the traffic of the main hall, they shoot fire and wind from their fingers with sharp gestures, driving the other sorcerer back. A particularly strong gust knocks the man back against the tapestry where Gwen hides. 

She lets the tapestry fall on top of him.

He thrashes under the weight of the fabric. The border Mary sewed flares gold and does not let him escape. Gwen steps out from behind the pile of wall-hanging, dusting off her hands.

“So what did he do?” Merlin asks her, looking down at the lump in the tapestry.

Gwen scratches her head, thinking of a crime. “Tax evasion?” she suggests.

Aelian cracks a smile. A knight in familiar armor walks by, and she pokes her head out of the hallway, shouting, “Sir Lancelot! Come quickly! We’ve caught a tax evader.”

Lance takes the man away, and they make their way back through the servants’ corridor into the courtyard. The air is filled with gold motes, glimmering pale, in swarms thick enough to touch. They hurry down the stairs, rushing over the cobblestones. “Did we do it?” Merlin calls. His eyes shine in the light of the air, bright as they are whenever he does magic. “Did it work?”

Arthur whoops. “It worked!” he laughs as he runs to meet them. “Merlin—Merlin, it worked! We did it!”

Gwen collides with Morgana and clings to her. She smells like firewood and lightning, and she is so happy that it makes Gwen’s throat ache. They laugh for joy, and their laughter rings and bounces off the stone of the castle. From the corner of her eye, she sees Merlin and Arthur kissing, and Yalena and Aelian holding each other, sparks blooming around their joined fingers.

The air is so bright that the gold lingers in her eyes after she closes them, glory enough for an age.

With a loud clatter, the door to the courtyard bursts open. They spring apart as guards file in, armored to the teeth. “What happened in here?” the king shouts, bringing up the rear. “Where is the beast?”

“Gone, Father,” Arthur says. He stands at the front of their little phalanx without a weapon in his hands. “We defeated it.”

Uther smiles briefly. “Well done, my son.”

Arthur stands a little taller. “We defeated it, sire. Not I alone. We all did.”

The king's face falls. “You—all defeated it,” he says slowly. Gwen watches as he surveys each of them in turn, his eyes travelling over Yalena’s sword and Morgana’s twin knives. He stills when he arrives at Gwen. “You again. Morgana’s maid. Even you had a part in defeating such a monster?”

“Aye, sire.” She steps out from behind Arthur to curtsey. 

“What’s your name, maid? I know I’ve seen you before.”

“I am Guinevere, sire.” Her voice resounds in the golden air, high and true. She meets his gaze and does not look away. “Guinevere, of Camelot. You killed my father.”

Uther stills. “The smith’s daughter.”

One of the king’s guards sets his hand on the hilt of his sword. Gwen doesn’t flinch. She hears Morgana and Arthur step closer to her, forming a steady presence at her back. Metal rubs against metal as Yalena reaches for her sword.

The king surveys their faces and then waves his hand, signalling for his soldiers to back down. “I suppose you want a reward,” he says stiffly. “For your service.”

“No, sire. I do not.”

His jaw is clenched tight. “Why are you here, then?” 

He sounds afraid. She lifts her chin high in triumph and answers, “Because Camelot is my kingdom. And I will let nothing harm her.”

\-----

The sun is high overhead on Midsummer Day, hot as a forge in the cloudless sky. Gwen and Merlin stand side-by-side, watching while the Fenlands delegation prepare for their departure from Camelot. Uther makes his displeasure known by not gracing the proceedings with his presence, but that does not temper the high spirits of everyone hustling around the courtyard. Yalena and Arthur are leaning against a wall, talking boisterously with little regard for decorum as parcels are laden into wagons and onto horses.

“Guinevere of Camelot,” Aelian says from behind them. Gwen turns to face her, and she claps Gwen on her shoulder. “Thank you, my lady. And you as well, Merlin.”

“Your friendship is thanks enough.” Gwen leans in to kiss her cheek. “I do wish you could stay for Midsummer, though.”

“We’ve stayed for far long enough here,” Aelian mutters as they walk to where Yalena is. The princess sees them and beams. “But—I have every faith that we will meet again.”

“You should visit us in Kesteven,” Yalena chimes in. “Our court is open to you and yours, at any time you want.”

Gwen smiles at the two of them, reaching out to clasp both their hands briefly. “I wish for you all the happiness in the realms.”

“And for you as well, Lady Gwen.” Yalena's answering grin is brilliant.

Morgana hurries up to them, already dressed for the festivities of the evening. “Uther’s coming,” she mutters, and they break apart, falling back into their proper places.

The festival that night is wide and sprawling. Bonfires light up the dark in flickering washes of gold and crimson, filling the air with sweet-scented smoke that drifted into the stars. The children of the lower town weave between the dancers and vendors, laughing as they chase each other, crowned with flowers in their hair. The earth is warm and loamy beneath their bare feet, and everything smells of greenery and ripeness. Watered wine and sweet cider flow freely, each cup a libation to the night, and the castle is hung in colors which flutter in the light breeze, fading into the smoke and the fragrant gloom.

“Are you ready?” Gwen asks Isaac.

The teacher looks far better than he did the last time she had seen him. “I have been,” he tells her kindly, hefting the bundle of clothing he has tucked under his arm. “For a long time now.”

They skirt around the edge of the festivities, entering the castle through the servants’ way. The corridors are nearly empty, with everyone down at the revelry, and they walk past the bored guards in the hallways without so much as an acknowledgement.

Morgana is waiting for them at the entrance to the dungeons. The prison guard is asleep at her feet, snoring lightly. “We have until dawn,” she announces. She blinks gold-sheened eyes, and the keys fly from the guard’s belt into her hands.

The baker’s daughter is huddled on the floor of her cell, grimy and pale from nearly a month without sunlight. Isaac falls to his knees, reaching through the barred window to touch her. “Seyah,” he murmurs. “Seyah, wake up.”

She whimpers and curls away from him.

“Wake up, child. We are not here to take you to your death.”

“Who—Isaac?” She lifts her head and gasps, scrambling to her feet. “What are you doing here? Is Mother—my lady,” she squeaks at the sight of Morgana.

“Quickly,” Morgana bids them, unlocking the door to the cell. “There’s a horse waiting by the eastern gate. Take it and go, both of you. I’m sorry I cannot do more.”

Seyah stumbles out of the cell, clumsy on her feet, and Morgana unlocks her manacles, hissing as her wrists are revealed, rubbed raw and red by the cold iron. Gwen gives her a bundle, crammed with every loaf, cake, and pie that could fit inside the fabric. “Your mother wanted to be here, but she couldn’t risk getting caught. She gives you this, and all of her love, and swears that she will see you again.”

The girl takes the food and hugs it tightly to her chest. Her eyes are red-rimmed and wet. She silently gives Isaac her hand, and he takes it, holding it tightly between both of his.

Morgana hands Isaac a little pouch, filled with marks enough to last the journey. “Go to the east, into the Fenlands. The court in Kesteven will grant you asylum.”

Gwen kneels down, taking out the the dagger Yalena had given her, its scabbard wound with strips of green silk. She wraps the fingers of Seyah’s free hand around the handle. “When you get to court, show them this. Tell them you were sent by the Lady Morgana, and the Lady Gwen.” She draws the girl into a hug. “Use it well, Seyah. Use it fiercely.”

\-----

By the time Morgana and Gwen return to the festival, Isaac and Seyah are long gone. They get cider for themselves, tart and pungent, and walk through the crowds arm in arm, much as they have in every past year. Lovers dance around the bonfires, holding hands and kissing without care, murmuring things that only they can hear. Gwen curls her fingers around her cup of cider, feeling the worn grain of the wood beneath her fingers. Her mother and father had met on Midsummer. Her father always called it a night of miracles—of magic, he would have said, had he not been in the city, but she always understood what he meant, even if he did not say it.

Miracles are performed by a god, by the cold and callous hands of fate or fortune. Magic is what they do for each other, in their own name.

“I dreamt of you last night,” Morgana says.

Her voice is a soft, touchable thing, the sort of sound that is only meant to travel the space between their bodies and no more. Gwen drains her cider, drinking to the honey-bitter dregs. She speaks into the shell of Morgana’s ear, hiding her face in the sweetness of her hair. “What did you see?” 

“I saw you—with gold woven all through your hair,” Morgana whispers. “And we were happy.” She turns to Gwen, and even in the near-dark, her eyes are bright. “We were so, so happy.”

Gwen kisses Morgana, and Morgana’s hand comes up to hold Gwen’s face. “And then,” she breathes into her mouth, “I woke up. And you were there.”

“And then?” Gwen asks against her lips.

“I believed it.” Morgana pulls back to trace Gwen’s face, her cheeks, her nose, her chin. “Gwen—by the gods, Gwen, I believe it.”

A smile breaks across Morgana’s face, big and bright as dawn, and she holds Gwen close and starts to laugh. It falls from her lips as honey, and Gwen leans in again to drink her fill.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All comments are welcome.
> 
> This all started about two months ago, when there was a resurgence of this show on my dash. Then, two weeks ago, a friend of mine started sending me clip compilations. Then I basically put the love theme for the show on repeat and wrote this all in a little over a week while getting ready for the next term of grad school (guess my concentration! it's certainly not medieval studies!). My Google history now is almost entirely about sericulture in medieval Europe. Also, did you know that pans back then sometimes had stubby little legs? Isn't that the cutest thing, y'all?
> 
> Full disclosure: While I was once so invested in BBC Merlin that I had Gwen's love theme as my morning alarm for a year, I haven't actually sat down to watch a full episode in a good six to seven years. I have no idea what the chronology is beyond a vague S2 setting. Plot has more or less been thrown to the wind. These are the characters that inhabit my head, and I'm afraid they're not necessarily the ones onscreen. I just love Angel Coulby's voice. I know very little about Arthuriana. I revel in anachronisms. A lot of what I set up (Aulide as the Lamia, the explicit vastness of the prophecy) is my own interpretation of what was in the show.


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